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What's really the best LPM?

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Scotty 757

Scotty 757

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I was just wondering everyones opinion on wich LPM is the best out there. From my first looks and from what I have read the LaserBee is the best. He is a great guy and it looks like his products are good. Also if I read right he gives discounts to LPF members. I am sure most of you will say LaserBee but I thought I would ask just incase. Thanks in advance! :yh:
 





There are LPM's that cost $10-12K ,built for labs. These are overkill for most hobbyist. The two most popular ones here are the Laserbee and Kenometer.

Warning:I have bought 2 off of e-bay.Both are almost worthless. I have to calibrate for nm and use ND filters for over 100mW. The hole to aim at in the sensor of one measures 2mm across. (smaller then a BB), and other aggravating things.

Stick with a known meter, and you won't find a decent one priced any cheaper then you will here.:D
 
For ME, Laserbee's hobbyist meter is perfect. I dont' have any intentions of owning a laser over 200mw and most of my lasers will be between 3-10mw. So having a meter that can measure from .1mw to 200mw would be ideal, and would give me the most accurate idea of what my lasers are doing. I have no need for a meter that measures from 5mw up to 1.1 watts (Laserbee 1).

This is a very subjective question, what really matters is what meter will be best for YOU. :)
 
His are not the only meters being sold here. There is also the Kenometer to consider.
 
Scientechs can sometimes be cheap on ebay if you're lucky, otherwise buying directly from scientech is going to be quite expensive. For hobbyists there's really only the Kenometer and Laserbee
 
My two meters:
http://jwcxz.com/projects/lasers/pics/09-09-27_02.jpg

The one at the top is a Liconix meter with a photoelectric detector. This meter looks like it was originally used for gassy lasers since it has wavelength selectors for common gas laser wavelengths. I've been meaning to figure out how to recalibrate it to work for the wavelengths that I use (I only have one and a half HeNes right now... :'(), but I haven't had a chance... The range maxes out at 100mW. The nice thing about this meter is that while I don't know actual power output values, I can easily watch how the power output changes. This is especially effective for determining power stability in DPSS lasers because the response time is extremely fast.

My other LPM is a Scientech 372, purchased along with a 10W thermopile from Laser_Ben, who had access to some surplus equipment (it has a DOE sticker on it :D). It's an analog meter, but using the analog output, I can hook it up with my multimeter, which can connect to my computer, so I can pull data right off of it and make graphs with Matlab and stuff. A while back I also purchased a huge 50W thermopile (originally with the intention of designing my own LPM for higher powered lasers), and that also works with this meter, though it needs to be calibrated.

For more pics and some graphs:
Scientech 372 Laser Power Meter @ JWC.blog
 
In case no-one noticed... my different LPMs are listed in my Sig....:whistle:

Jerry
 
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