Well, It's Been a Long Time for Me as Well

[Dundee]

G'day mates! Brian from just a Croc's crawl South of Grand Canyon, Arizona straight away. Ok, so in the late 90's and early 2K's I was into PC building, CPU Overclocking/Hacking which eventually led to Android Phone Hacking (which I still do) and then I got a charge out of playing with green 532nm lasers back in the mid 2K's and was a member here sometime after that. Eventually got a Laserbee and then had some fun integrating some of my toy ST Phasers with laser modules. Had a nice 50mw ST TOS Phaser mod (low power by today's standards) and for some crazy reason gave it to a close friend of mine (figured I'd make another) whose dog somehow got a hold of it and summarily chewed it to pieces. Lol. Eventually got burnt out on this hobby and have been involved in high-end telescopes the past dozen years or so and having fun using 50 to 100mw lasers as "Finders" instead of optical finders or red-dot finders. Now, I got the itch again to play with lasers and my ST toys. Started doing some research again only to find things have changed a bit. There isn't that many vendors as years ago, modules aren't as readily available and a vendor with 532nm is like pulling teeth to find, lol. Not to mention the amount of nonsense in power ratings. Anyway, I'm not looking to burn and blow things up like before. To me, it's the Visual that gives me a charge. Especially when it comes out of a toy Phaser, lol.

Here's a couple pics of my recent project. Similar to what I did back in 2007 but way more power. G'day!

 

[WizardG]

......." isn't that many vendors as years ago" --Most of the old vendors were selling modules from just 3 OEMs. With diodes I prefer to think of the situation as having more choices, not less.

DTR, 'nuff said.


....."the amount of nonsense in power ratings", --Too true, especially from aliexpress and ebay sellers. But you can have a real watt of green goodness for cheap now from a diode. Not as nice a beam as DPSS, but bright as @#^$$@!@^!

Welcome back!

 

[paul1598419]

Yeah, I still have several 532nm modules left in my stock including ones that will get close to 200 mW. I haven't used one in a build in quite sometime though. Also, welcome back.