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USB 532nm pen +

Pman

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While perusing fasttech I came upon some new pens that have built in rechargeable batteries with a standard micro usb port for about $10. Ordered 2 of them on the 4th and they arrived on the 19th which is a normal travel time from China to the U.S.

Page where they can be found:
They are offered with either a green or red diode and a few different colored hosts.
171 Lasers at FastTech - Worldwide Free Shipping

Page where the green colored ones are:
$9.66 Z-07 5mW 532nm Single Dot Green Laser Pointer Pen - built-in 300mAh rechargeable Li-ion battery at FastTech - Worldwide Free Shipping

According to the Fasttech info. the battery is a 300mAh lithium and operates at a 50mA draw.







You can see a little hole behind the button which is allows you to see a red/blue light. There's no instructions but what I figured out is that as long as the battery has enough charge it will remain blue and when it turns red you need to recharge.
They initially had just enough charge to output about 35mW but need to be charged before use. I charged them for 5 hours and the LED was always red so as far as I can tell there's no indication of when they are fully charged. The units are very light but it's kind of nice having a green host and the little LED as if it were a more expensive unit than it is. Tempted to get the pink one just for something different.
After charging they output 61 and 70mW.








Shaky pic but itt's just to show the change in color to blue led.


Uses a typical plastic lens at the end of a holder for focusing which means time to make them fully focusable;) Yes they can light a green headed match with ease:)







Had also purchased a couple of the 5V 532nm modules and put them in a couple of hosts after adjusting the pots to .43A outputting 91 and 121mW. Both are fully focus-able of course.


All I did was use epoxy to glue the top section of the module that has the lens to the cap (after tightening down the middle section and scraping the top of the pen host inside so the cap would turn).




Went through all of my 532nm pens that I hadnt already made focusable and after some testing to see what power was needed to light a green tipped match I made everything 50mW and over fully focus-able in about 3 hours Sunday afternoon.








 
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Pman

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Thanks.
It doesn't actually take a lot of power to light a black tipped or different color match. People just don't realize just how blinding/powerful these actually are. You just don't need massive output for a bit of fun. I've got about 10 or so <50mW 532nm that would all light a black tipped match and most a red tipped one. Haven't been bored enough to bother making them focus-able yet and I like the idea of a unit being able to light most any match and there's lots of green tipped ones everywhere. Kind of funny though since every once in awhile I carry just a simple <50mW 532nm in case I feel like showing someone and giving it away. Most of my pens are 10% IR or less. Best ones I've seen are the ones from the Ebay seller "Overfeel" for the 3 colored pack that ship out of NYC. Correct units to modify to focus.
Might try to pull the end out of one of the USB ones to take a look but haven't made up my mind yet as it's possible it would break. Didn't bother with any beam shots since there's a 1000 of them around for 532nm pens.

As you can see, you don't need a work bench (just a washer and dryer) lol. I do actually have space on my desk with all my computer and tv/stereo stuff in my "office" but it's easier to work on a metal surface with a soldering iron and glue that I can more easily remove. PLUS my wife is OK with it;)
 
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BowtieGuy

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Yep, nice find Pman. I like the white bodied one, kind of classy looking; it's been a long time since I've looked at the FT lasers.
Be sure and let us know what you see if you decide to get into the USB end.

BTW, Looks like you're running a little low on pens. :crackup:
 
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Glad they work :)
Have you counted how many pens you actually have? There's so many :O
 

Pman

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I have a list of every laser 100mW and up. As far as straight $5 pens (not including better ones from a manufacturer such as (Laserbtb)) it says there are:

-(5) 405nm
-(5) 532nm
-(21) 650nm

I would take a guess that there are < than a 100 pens from 50mW to 99mW all made focusable.

There's also 41 from the Fasttech 3v and 5v 532nm modules from 100mW - 141mW that were installed in all kinds of very inexpensive hosts including some regular pen hosts.

There's just over 100 >99mW units (about a 1/3 of my collection) that are rarely touched. For me the fun is in the build and figuring out things. I have 18 Class 4 that I don't consider "fun". They are beautiful to look at but after I LPM them they are RARELY ever turned on. I realize that some wouldn't understand not using them all the time.
All of my units have their own set of batteries plus there's lots of never used ones in plastic cases awaiting homes.
Before I came up with my focus-able pen tutorial I had many skeptics saying it wasn't possible. It's not only possible but very easy once you've done a few especially if you do a bunch at the same time. From beginning to end it takes me about 1/2 hour to do a single unit and most of that time has to do with epoxy. Took 3 hours to do the 18 units above so that's 10 minutes each.
I realize that most everyone wants to own a very high powered laser and I understand why. I currently have a 1.5W 520nm complete DTR module awating one of sinners custom all copper chrome plated hosts which will hopefully arrive tomorrow since it looks like it's not happening today:(. That is a ridiculous amount of green. I don't know what the equivalent amount of blue would be but it wouldn't surprise me if you needed 5 times that power or more. I can honestly say that I would rather 520nm be more common than the 532nm as the color is so much nicer to my eyes. It's a good thing my favorite color is green since probably 1/2 my units are.
Wish I had the $ at the time the 589nm group buy was happening. I could have used my Christmas $ to get a 589nm instead of the 1.5W 520nm but I couldn't get any guarantee on a peak of 100mW. Just hoping that some day the opportunity will come knocking again and the $ will be there.

So, what was your original question :crackup:
 
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USB charging is a neat idea, nice review!

Hope you don't mind me derailing the thread but do you happen to have bought any el cheapo 405nm pen that was actually low power (<10mW)? I used to have one a long time ago but it died. I liked it because the dot looked different (dark purple instead of the pale bluish of higher powers).
 

Pman

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Don't have a single 405nm that is that low powered. The lowest I think is at least 35mW. Got 2 yesterday that were 65 and 91mW. Extremely unlikely to get one less than 50mW.
Looks like my 520nm host is actually out for delivery:) went from Ohio at 07:30 to my city really quick and says it's out for delivery. Didn't expect that. Now I can't take a shower in case he shows up. Not a problem;)
I did purchase a couple of those 980 pens that you have. Don't know if I'm supposed to see that 490nm with just my eyes (I can't). Mine output about the same as yours.
 
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That's a pity. I have one at ~30mW, lowest one I've seen in a very long time - but it's still too much.

You can probably see the 490nm with your eyes, but you'll need a good IR filter to do it safely. I can even see it on the wall at short distance, but it needs to be completely dark and I have to be "looking for it".
 

Pman

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I'll take a look through all of my units to make sure but will be surprised if I find one that low.

I'm always messing with pens:) If I get bored I'll make everything I have under 50mW focus-able;) I should take a pic of all my shortened pens. They were made to use a single 10440. You can see in the pic that there's one I made extra long for 3 AAA just because.

Verified I have no 405nm that low.

Just focused the last 5 532nm that were under 50mW. Now what lol....
 
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Pman, you just gave me a *huge* help!

When you mentioned you have made short pens and long ones I remembered the low powered pen I had was a single AAA pen. I had no LPM, 10440 batt or any knowledge of lasers back then (2009 or 2010), but after your post I began to speculate the reason for the low power... of course a cheap chinese pen wouldn't have a boost driver back in the day.. in fact it was probably direct driven and thus serverely under-driven, explaining the low power.

So I did what had never occured to me before (not sure why, since I do this all the time to my class 4 lasers, LOL) - I powered my 30mW pen with a single AAA and a spacer.. and it worked! With a duracell the bluish-grey center is still there (but much softer), but with another batt I got the "true purple" dot without the center. With a nearly dead batt I even got it below threshold (works like those UV leds but focused like a laser).

Very cool indeed!

Problem solved, thank you very much for the help!
 

Pman

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You're welcome and Merry Christmas everyone:)

I now have to look over all my cases and units and find things to improve. About 1.5 years ago I had purchased lots of Fasttech 532nm modules and when I was putting them into lots of different hosts I didn't even think of making them focus able. Think I'll start looking through them to find ones I didn't glue in place.
 
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I wanted to +rep you for this post, but the system wouldn't let me. Great post. Just bought some of them before they disappear.
 




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