First off, yes, optotronics is top notch in quality etc. and they are actually priced very well compared to the equivavlent lasers sold by other companies. BUT, they are certainly not the only option. it really depends on what you are looking for. Not everyone wants a big RPL. So, what are you looking for?
Also, I am very curious to know about your experience with dragonlasers. Do you just mean you want to upgrade? Becuase low power does not mean low quality. And from what I have heard (and I've researched this a lot ) Dragonlasers is a very good, trustworthy company with only minor blemishes on it's record. They have excellent customer service. So I suspect If your laser is "low quality" it may have broken during shippment (pretty common as DPSS lasers are very fragile) and you should talk to Dragonlasers to get it replaced. I am guessing you got a viper 95mW? That is a LOT of bang for your buck. And it should be good quality. Dragonlasers isn't the manufacturer, they just sell lasers made by CNI. They are by no means low quality. So yeah, try to straighten that out with Dragonlasers. Or maybe your expectations were built up too high? Who knows.
I would go with optotronics for sure, Nova and Laser Glow both sell high powered portables but they are bigger than the RPL, so looks like the RPL is your best choice, plus the RPL costs a little less too
Thanks for all the advice, I went with a red 250mW laser from Laserglow. (Special Features: Low cost) lol
Fan cooled and everything but I don't see a problem with that.
About my Dragonlaser. When i first got it it seemed a little weak (doing being able to do what it says it should)
Like lighting matches.
It was about half a year ago when I got it and didn't really use it much. And now it not working how it should.
I must say I will never order another Dragonlaser, and I will never recommend them.
I have sold my $200 Dragonlaser for $50 (on this forum )
And can't wait to get my Laserglow!
Okay, but you do realise that for the price of an Orion you could have gotten an Aries-125 that is much brighter, or an X175 from NOVALasers? Green lasers are so much more impressive.
And you could've gotten a 250mW red off JayRob from these forums for $200. :-/
Have you seen the beamspecs of that laserglow lab red?
Transverse Mode Near TEM00
Longitudinal Mode Multi
Beam divergence, full angle (mrad) <3.0
Beam diameter at the aperture (mm) ~6.0 nearly square beam
Square beam.....
Unless you bought the module solely for a lasershow you are going to be disappointed.