Why are all the good posts so old?

[Commander J. Bloodmaker]

Did everyone die?

 

[Unown (WILD)]

There's a long history of drama on this forum... and that's putting it lightly

 

[Ears and Eggs]

We were once a thriving forum, great members all over. When one day it happened, giant warships the size of mountains came through a wormhole from a moon orbiting the gas giant Aldebaran-4. We had hoped they would be peaceful, but then we saw it, the motto on the side of their ships: "To Abduct and Probe!".


J/K



It really goes in cycles on the forums, we get a fancy new diode and there's a big rush of interest, then a long period of not so much. Right now we're kind of in a long period of stagnation unfortunately. Hopefully one which will be broken with some awesome new wavelength diode.


Unfortunately there were also a couple big drama events in the past few years that did some damage, but I won't go into that in detail here.

 

[Unown (WILD)]

We can go into detail in the discord though. There's a specific room made for that kind of discussion. You're welcome to join

 

[skijohn]

Many of the best members are driven out...

 

[RedCowboy]

There was a boom in interest as direct laser diodes made the hobby more affordable, the blue projector diodes and then the direct greens were a big deal when everyone was paying a dollar per mw for 532nm dpss modules and the directs were easy to build into compact portables.

I don't know of anyone who was driven out except some trolls, anyone who wants to be here can be.

 

[Commander J. Bloodmaker]

There's a long history of drama on this forum... and that's putting it lightly

Oh I read up in here about a year before ever joining, I seen a lot of drama and can only imagine what got deleted. I've noticed some very high horse's with people that don't really have a clue what they are doing, on their backs. I stay out of that fishing hole.

I may have to take a peek in that room. lol

Many of the best members are driven out...

I seen some of that in my reading. Noticed there are some that just come to troll/argue.

 

[icecruncher]

I miss the group buys, but otherwise, consider that there are not many new diodes that are unique.

We also have people who are better at helping us with identifying and sorting new versions of diodes, like DTR. This didn't happen back in the day. Instead there was a kill fund to help identify what diodes could do.

We do have many more arrays now, where 8 to 32 or even more diodes are crammed into a projector for commercial applications, but even with these, they are quickly identified by someone on here.

There is nothing new that will bring the crowd back, maybe yellows or orange might increase traffic a little but that is very unlikely to happen. A 2 watt, 7 watt, 20 watt, etc. not much difference for most.

The Projector forum still sees a great deal of traffic.

 

[Unown (WILD)]

A lot of talented members have moved on to other interests as well

 

[grainde]

Only a couple of members / scammers were driven out, but I think most left due to the website format change and / or personal circumstances. To be honest the website used to be a lot more user friendly and intuitive. There was also a rep system which many liked, some for personal status, others for power and some for sales. Admittedly though the rep system, although I miss it as it helped a lot with my build sales, did cause a lot of issues - mates reping mates, groups neg reping others etc. On the positive side though it did encourage members to post a lot more and show their builds.

I ultimately fell off the wagon, because I moved house to another country and had a baby. Life is starting to calm down now, so Ill be checking in from time to time. I also still have a projector and some hosts, so maybe Ill offer a couple of builds for sale when I find some time.

Anyway I hope you are all well and I look forward to meeting everyone again soon!

 

[Ears and Eggs]

The rep system was a very double edged sword to say the least.


One other thing that really had a major negative impact on the whole hobby was the restrictions on high powered lasers that many countries have put in place, mostly in the last 5-10 years. In the earlier days of the hobby it was for the most part a free for all.
Many more companies like LaserGlow, CNI, and DragonXasers used to have full lineups of high powered handhelds in many wavelengths. As costs decreased though, more and more people were able to afford high powered lasers and more idiots started pointing them at airplanes causing many governments to crack down hard, ending that sort of golden age of the hobby.


For me this was really the biggest factor that took some of the wind out of my sails. Here in Canada it is now illegals to possess any handheld laser over 1mW in any public space within 10km of an airport.

 

[Unown (WILD)]

Ah the rep system was a joke. People went crazy for it. The system said nothing about someone's actual reputation. It was cumulative too. So basically each consecutive rep would get higher and higher with the more you got. One rep to another member would be larger than someone with lesser points. It was abused in every way possible. People were even allowed to purchase rep at one point in lpf history.
People's rep were being devastated by one single rep from members with insanely high rep points. It also was not regulated.

This was one of the reasons many left. In fact it was a huge blow to lpf that the affects of it still linger to this day.

 

[RedCowboy]

I was not a fan of the rep system. However I suppose for sellers there could be a customer review score.

 

[Commander J. Bloodmaker]

Only a couple of members / scammers were driven out, but I think most left due to the website format change and / or personal circumstances. To be honest the website used to be a lot more user friendly and intuitive. There was also a rep system which many liked, some for personal status, others for power and some for sales. Admittedly though the rep system, although I miss it as it helped a lot with my build sales, did cause a lot of issues - mates reping mates, groups neg reping others etc. On the positive side though it did encourage members to post a lot more and show their builds.

I ultimately fell off the wagon, because I moved house to another country and had a baby. Life is starting to calm down now, so Ill be checking in from time to time. I also still have a projector and some hosts, so maybe Ill offer a couple of builds for sale when I find some time.

Anyway I hope you are all well and I look forward to meeting everyone again soon!

I like really fat straight beams in the 1000mw-2000mw range and spend way to much money on laser stuff... . Old projection screen tv's have lens that help to make some huge beams. I also like 100% duty cycle stuff that plugs into the wall the best....

The rep system was a very double edged sword to say the least.


One other thing that really had a major negative impact on the whole hobby was the restrictions on high powered lasers that many countries have put in place, mostly in the last 5-10 years. In the earlier days of the hobby it was for the most part a free for all.
Many more companies like LaserGlow, CNI, and DragonXasers used to have full lineups of high powered handhelds in many wavelengths. As costs decreased though, more and more people were able to afford high powered lasers and more idiots started pointing them at airplanes causing many governments to crack down hard, ending that sort of golden age of the hobby.


For me this was really the biggest factor that took some of the wind out of my sails. Here in Canada it is now illegals to possess any handheld laser over 1mW in any public space within 10km of an airport.

We have laws here on power and usage as well. My city says no laser usage over 1mw in the sky closer than 5 miles from the airport. Pointing a laser at a cop or plane, etc, is a felony. I don't get the fascination with a burning laser. I have an engraver for that, although I am trying to do stuff by hand. Working out a bench system though, not a tiny handheld. I understand the laws, but never will the idiots. We are allowed to own whatever we want for the most part( no fusion lasers systems, sadly. they call that a WMD), just have to use it responsibly, or ya get nailed to the wall, and for good reason.

 

[icecruncher]

I like really fat straight beams in the 1000mw-2000mw range and spend way to much money on laser stuff... . Old projection screen tv's have lens that help to make some huge beams. I also like 100% duty cycle stuff that plugs into the wall the best....

This, I think is also part of the reason people have dropped off. Its the 'More power, who cares about beam specs' in lasers. Chasing a more powerful laser beam.

I have seen quite a few come on here, interested in lasers, only to say something like this 'I have just learned about lasers and I want a 40w CO2 handheld laser to burn stuff and point at things, how do I build it'.

Then they wonder why they feel no one helps them.

IMHO, nothing beats a super fine beam, no matter what the power.
If you haven't seen an opsl or 40mw HeNe, even some of the argons, I hope you change your mind when you do.

Most of the new laser diodes have trash specs for pointers and are made with projectors in mind so they sacrifice on beam specs.

I guess I've seen some really trashy Chinese RGB projectors and realize how much the quality suffers with those "fat" beams.

I saw a small mixed gas with a PCAOM at SELEM a few years ago in the gas room. I have never seen such a perfect projector for color and images.

 

[CurtisOliver]

Maybe it has something to do with a large variety of reasons like an influx of lower quality members/content, trolling, bad management decisions, laser regulations and market shrinking. To follow on from icecruncher, the user base has changed from people who have a genuine interest in lasers in all their forms to those who are after their next cool toy. Tbf, this is trend seen all over the place. We have 'toy' magnets contemplating being banned in the UK because of yet again another idiotic tik tok trend.