Violet 405 vs Green 532 a newb's perspective

[notsobrightbob]

I have read alot here in the great LPF community and took advice of many before jumping in. I was really impressed with the Optotronics 36mw 532 green I bought for my first laser.

After more study my second laser was a Laserbtb 500mw 405nm Violet. I know I read everywhere, and I think I even understand the science of why the violet is harder to see but I was quite underwhelmed with the difference between 500 mw of violet vs my wimpy 36 mw of green. I guess I was hoping jumping to 500 mw would really give me some vivid purple in the dark.

The laserbtb is a great device, put together well I think the price was very fair I just think as a newb I have more to learn.

Just posting here as a reality check for other newbs shopping the green vs blue vs violet dilemma

Thanks everyone for the continued education

Bob

 

[mortuus]

Yes violet is a very interesting and cool color, try shine at something white like a tshirt the you will see how bright it will look, green are nice too but its kinda boring by now they were cool 5 years ago now they are just dull but still if u want something visible beam u cant beat it for sure.

 

[alessnilsen]

Violet is also better for burning, you can play a lot with fluorescence, sometimes it will appear as a bright blue like mortuus said, because some materials are made with a compound that use UV to make it appear more white (like paper, clothes etc..).

 

[Alaskan]

I thought this might be of interest, here's a screen shot comparison chart showing the relative visual intensity of 405nm to 532nm green:

As you can see, milliwatt to milliwatt, 405nm is only 1 percent as bright as 532nm DPSS green. You can go to the site and input your own numbers here:
http://users16.jabry.com/lsrtools/RelativeBrightness/?nm1=405&mw1=1&nm2=532&mw2=1&useRaleigh=on - This page provided by LPF member RHD.

According to this, for a 405nm laser beam to be as bright to the eye as a 100mw 532nm green laser, it would need to output ten watts of power.