Why I think Laserglow is the best bargain!

[windstrings]

After intense study and research, this is my conclusion... although I don't have the history or knowledge of many in the laser field, I have been quite impressed with laserglow after studying the alternatives.

Laserglow is very generous with thier power ratings. The absolute most, the best I can tell.
If a laser manufacture knows its customers are only hobbyist and will not need long runtimes, they only set to be on for a few minutes, they can turn them up pretty hot and sell for what laserglow would rate as less and sell for less.... for instance a laserglow 300mw, could sell as a 400mw by some competitors knowing the customer is only going to be using it for short burst. By installing shutdown features, the customer never realizes the difference!


What do I mean?.. The laserglow units "especially the Hercs" are designed for commercial use without regard for needing to turning off for a cooldown. When over 250mw, fans are supplied on the units which at first I saw as a negative until I noticed the peak, midrange and sustained power are all higher with the fan verses not. The hercs carry 3 D cell batteries, so there is plenty of power to spare anyway.

If you are going to sell a laser that needs to be able to run continuously, you can't turn it up so high that it falls "below" its rated power after a few minutes? Rated power is rated power... that means continuously with laserglow Hercs!
Even the Aries "without fans" can run for very long times without fear of overheating.

When looking at the charts on the Aries or the Hercs, you will notice the resting constant power rating is always a considerable distance above its "rated" power!

What does all this really mean?.... what it means is you get more laser power for your competitive dollar.

You are not buying a laser that holds it rated power for a couple of minutes and then either "shuts off" or falls "below" its rated power, instead you have constant power at or above rated power with a quite impressive surge peak power for minutes before you have to settle at its "sustained" rated power "which is always above the rated power you paid for.

Just in case you have not really noticed, The diode power does indeed play a huge factor in power. In burning power, I have been blown away with the 175mw Aries... I was burning box matches over and over at 7 feet!.... at one or two feet, I merely passed the match through the beam and it instantly ignited!

As you compare the 300mw diode pen lasers, or even the 500mw diode pen lasers, the Aries with its 1.2 watt, the 2.0 Herc and now the upgraded 2.5w hercs, you will see the "no competition" surge power going higher and higher and "maintaining" that power for longer as the respective diode power goes up. Of course the negative is that it drains batteries faster, but if you want power, it has to come from somewhere!!!

Based on the individual unit and how its tuned, that peak stays for several minutes! If you look at their demo chart on thier web page, http://www.laserglow.com/hercules.html you will see on that particular laser "300mw" that it has a peak that holds for 5 minutes at about 380mw or better!!!!, then drops to about 360mw for another 3 minutes and then wanders around for another 5 minutes to finally rests to a sustained output of 320mw or more!

***Keeping that in mind, the 2.5w diode units "the new ones" have even more punch!.....

Just in case you haven't figured my point yet, I will state it another way.....

Most of us out here are "hobbyist".. none of us have a need or desire to run our laser for hours at a time, or even minutes at a time!.. lets face it.. most of our blast are only for a few seconds, or at the most maybe one minute!....

Would you rather pay a competitive price for a 200mw laser that indeed holds that power but only for a few minutes "or less?"
With the laserglow, you can pay for a 200mw "commercial" laser and since your real use time is only a few minutes or less, you effectively get a much more powerful laser for your money, correct?

Take a look again at that link.. go to the "pricing" tab and lets look at a 300mw unit with a 2.0w diode unit.
you pay a very competitive price for 300mw, but what do you really get???
The 300mw laser in the example shows a 400mw peak. Wholly smokes, thats 100mw of free power for maybe as long as 5 minutes!!!!! keep in mind peak powers all vary unit to unit..... some will peak higher and fall faster, while others peak longer but slightly less.. but even this 2.0diode unit gives an extra 100mw's for a few minutes.

We are not talking about the initial "spike" power... thats not even charted or registered on this graph as that is even another freebee...... we are talking about real usable power that last for several minutes!!!!.... and KEEP IN MIND the 2.5w diodes do even better!!!! now note that that graph continues for 150 minutes!!! Wholly smokes.. lets see others vendors produce charts like that!

So to make it even more simple.. for the hobbyist that keeps his runtimes low.... you pay for a 300mw laser but get a 400mw laser!!!!! as long as you don't try and blast it for too long..... of course as usual, if you do leave it on, there is no damage, it merely goes to rest at its "sustained power" that is somewhere between 301mw and 324mw!.. you can't lose!!!!

I am quite estatic about my recent purchase of the 300mw 2.5W diode unit!.. its gonna be some kinda baaaaadddd to the bone!

I will definately be posting pics! and I'll do a mini review of course.

The Hercs come with an overheat light so that you would be warned if things are getting too hot.
You may ask "I thought they never overheated?.... Well you could be in high ambient temperatures as on a hot summer day "or night" or you may opt to turn it up above factory settings.
However laserglow tunes them to get the highest power to still be stable and to be able to run continuously sustained "above" its rated power.

As it was explained to me.. there are many "commercial applications" that would be quite alarming if the laser turned off due to overheating.. such as surgery will eveyone is under sterile conditions....

THERE IS AN ADJUSTABLE pod that adjust the power to the diode. NO you don't take it apart , the adjustment is right on top and if you want to turn it up to have a higher power and lose your continous runtime ability then thats your choice!......
Just use your brain and common sense ....... thats what the overheat light is for..... technically, you would probrably "never" see it come on if left set at laserglows settings as it is set to run stable continously!!!

I must warn anyone that if you do adjust the pod upward, you may not be doing yourself a favor. There is a chance you could have even less power, or so much more heat that the added power would not be worth it. Of course, some other lasers may react positively to the upwards power adjustment and indeed be more powerful, but maybe not as stable.

It is also warned if you turn it up, you may not get it back to the sweet spot attained in laserglows lab.

I myself prefer one thats as powerful as it can be for 5 - 10 minutes and then I don't really care after that because I never intend to run it that long anyway!...... IMHO, thats the best way to bet the most power for the least money... but its a gamble as to which lasers will do what.... thats why they are all tuned beforehand and sold accordingly.

If you make a purchase and you too wish to tune your laser in such a fashion, I would recommend asking them to tune it for you as thier sophisticated equipment can see the power pitfalls and avoid them as they dial it in to match your desired specifications.

But laserglow wants you to know, they are already dialed in perfectly for long term operation... the only reason I can see having them alter it is if you are willing to toss abilities for "continuous" runtime and be willing to limit your runtime to a lesser figure in an attempt to get more power that may be less stable.
I don't know if an extra charge would be incurred or not..... I don't think so if you tell them in advance so they aren't trying to custome tune a laser that they have already tuned and is ready for market.... in other words, there may be a small wait.. I'm sure circumstances will vary based on availablities and time.

Laserglow totally blew me away with their customer support.... as I could tell they were extremely busy, they still found time to be patient and answer all my questions and be quite cordial about it at that!...... I never got the feeling I was wasting thier time and being a pest, even though I knew I was!!!! LOL!

 

[SenKat]

Just in case someone is curious - Windstrings does not work for laserglow - he is just an extremely satisfied customer - as am I for that matter ! Their prices may be steep - but if you look at the Herc line - it is a KNOWN power - unlike WL Spyder II series... Damn, almost broke - can only give my $.01 now !

 

[windstrings]

Just in case someone is curious - Windstrings does not work for laserglow - he is just an extremely satisfied customer - as am I for that matter ! Their prices may be steep - but if you look at the Herc line - it is a KNOWN power - unlike WL Spyder II series... Damn, almost broke - can only give my $.01 now !

I'm sure I do sound like I work for them... "that would be a blast".. but I don't... I"m in the medical profession. I am "thrilled" with my find in finding them and want the whole world to hear the gospel!!!! or at least challenge me and prove me wrong......

Most hobbyist really like "small" as do I, and the Aries is not bad for small... but of course not a penlight either!

I was thinking about the price differences too last night as I read about the "envee' models by lucent optics which are priced very fair.
Although they don't explore into the upper powers, they do indeed seem to be a very nice laser at the stated powers they handle "up to 100mw" beating much of the competition in performance... I'm sure the AA batteries helps verses AAA batteries.

I then compared that performance with the Aries 100mw".. The Envee definately appears to be a step above many of the pen lasers.. in quality of lens as well as a few other items, but It always bugs me when they don't reveal specs, graphs and are not totally transparent with their details, I guess they figure thats what the forums are for.
I see a link to candlepower forums on their page, but no advertized specs or graphs that really pens them down as to what they will or won't do over a timed run.

As for the Aries as I have eleborated quite extensively above.... if you look at the graph on their main page, it actually demonstrates an Aries 100mw.
Note that if you put your mouse on the graph to the right that says "the laserglow difference", the graph will enlarge and you will note that the 100mw bumped up to 180mw and held that range for about a full minute to minute and a half before dropping to 160mw for another one to 1.5 minutes to then drop to 120+mw for the rest of the graph. We are talking about a (10minute) runtime to get the stated power!!!!!! this particular graph has 1600 seconds recorded! Wholly smokes!.. thats 26 minutes!!!!!! not 10 seconds or 30, not 2 minutes.. but 26 minutes! Few other companies are brazen enough to proclaim such advertizing!
And then throw a 6 month warranty behind it with ability to upgrade for a year.

It means "volumes" when a company believes in thier product enough to give a liberal warranty.... they know all the details, strengths and weaknesses if anybody does.

.....So someones next skeptical question or statement may be that its all bull?....

Well I don't know... I didn't try mine for 10 minutes, but I can tell you that the Aries 175 was very stable with amazing brightness and burning power.... so I guess you really get what you pay for "and more".
Because if you were to buy a 100mw Aries as compared to much of the competition, you would really be getting "as demonstrated in the chart".. a 180mw laser!!!!!!! if you never left it on for over 1.5 minutes!!!! or call it as good as 160mw for up to 3 minutes.. or call it a 120mw for indefinate!!!!! and you only paid for 100mw!

Many other lasers "DO NOT" hold thier stated power except for brief periods of time and are too unstable to get an average mw rating of any credibility.

Few can stand up to that punishment... so in reality, Aries could have turned these babies up even more and sold them for more and would have "still" been equal to the same standards that many other compainies sell under and would have been "righteous" for doing so.... but you cannot do that when you have commercial customers!......

As you can tell, I"m a stickler for details and this is my resolve after nit picking apart the information.

As for the envee, I may get one of those when I save up some more cash because they do indeed appear to be a nice "pocket portable" laser... but if you really want to "walk the dog and kick the cat", the Aries is near impossible to beat as you are now dealing with "commercial" equipment and not just toys for hobbyist. And that last statement becomes quite evident when you fire one up side by side the competition!!!!

I don't own a nexus as do you senkat, but I know their good "and very expensive".. I know you have some awesome pictures of its beam at night..... If I may ask, how does the visible brightness and burning power of your Aries 175 compare to the Nexus 95mw, and how much more did the Aries cost?

As for me.... I have a 135mw penlasers "black with thin gold rims"and the Aries appeared a strong "double, maybe three times brighter".. and the burning power was not to be compared!!!!!

Your eyes adjust to the brighter one when beaming side by side and makes the dimmer one look lame!!!

 

[pseudonomen137]

You sure wrote a lot so I have to admit I haven't read it all yet. The detail I was wondering about is what you meant with the pot to control the diode power. What were you talking about an external diode power adjustment? I didn't understand that part.

Also, not that what you say is wrong, but I do find it somewhat ironic how you are comparing these to some other lasers like the envee and CNI black/gold. A lot of the problem for me is that these companies do nothing to prove the output, but both the CNI black/gold, and the Envee come from the same manufactuere as the Laserglow lasers. The "envee", which is just some marketing name like "aries", or "fusion", is actually a close brother to the Aries in fact

 

[randall158]

i own 2 aries, 1 hercules and 1 gallileo from laserglow. they exceeded the expectations i had before the purchase. however , the criteria for what is the best laser for the buck is a variable that cannot be measured purely by sustained mws. i did not purchase the biggons to get full power over long duty cycles. it is much easier to carry my dragonlaser 125 in my pocket and bring it into service fast. a best value like you have proclaimed laserglow to be loses some of its allure if the price is to high for the average joe. laserglow is a great value based on service, mws sustained, and service. their large size, cumbersome safety features and price are the downside.

 

[windstrings]

You sure wrote a lot so I have to admit I haven't read it all yet. The detail I was wondering about is what you meant with the pot to control the diode power. What were you talking about an external diode power adjustment? I didn't understand that part.

Also, not that what you say is wrong, but I do find it somewhat ironic how you are comparing these to some other lasers like the envee and CNI black/gold. A lot of the problem for me is that these companies do nothing to prove the output, but both the CNI black/gold, and the Envee come from the same manufactuere as the Laserglow lasers. The "envee", which is just some marketing name like "aries", or "fusion", is actually a close brother to the Aries in fact

the picture doesn't show it well, but if you look at the schematic breakdown of the Herc you will see the adjustment...http://www.laserglow.com/hercules.html put your mouse over the second picture from the left and you can see it "barely" if you have firefox and the plugin for zoom you can zoom it up.
I understand you can adjust and "alter" the factory tuned settings if you wish.

I understand CNI makes these lasers, but either they are built to different specs or its merely the difference is pure stable power verses the more fragile AAA units. I don't really know.... but I do believe my little pen laser was also a CNI version, but the quality and power brightness, burning and quality is quite different than the Aries. I suppose laserglow gives them thier specs and they built to suit... I don't know, but CNI does seem to be the company that produces some of the best divergence and stability even in thier cheaper units.

You are much more knowledgeable about such matters than I am..... all I can tell you is what I see and am witnessing.. maybe you can help explain the why..... have you played with an Aries or Hercules yet? and if so, what was your impression?

 

[windstrings]

i own 2 aries, 1 hercules and 1 gallileo from laserglow. they exceeded the expectations i had before the purchase. however , the criteria for what is the best laser for the buck is a variable that cannot be measured purely by sustained mws. i did not purchase the biggons to get full power over long duty cycles. it is much easier to carry my dragonlaser 125 in my pocket and bring it into service fast. a best value like you have proclaimed laserglow to be loses some of its allure if the price is to high for the average joe. laserglow is a great value based on service, mws sustained, and service. their large size, cumbersome safety features and price are the downside.

I totally agree with your observations.. if laserglow could master the hurdles of size they would open up a whole new market to the hobbyists.. but at this point, thier main market is commercial "which forces thier standards to remain very high".
The Envee looks nice but I would really like a little more power, I understand its easy to mod it to 125mw?.. but knowing all lasers are not created equal, I would hate to mess one up that didn't like that setting.

I would love to see what a 100mw envee does against my 135mw pen laser.. I expect it may win the battle due to the bigger batteries and higher quality optics if nothing else.

My dad used to always tell me "a bargain is only a bargain if you need it".
There is some truth to that here too.. if you cannot practically use the larger lasers, then whats the point?

I do believe there is a huge market for the smaller units, but there is so much crap out there.. its always nice to see high standards and pure quality.

The danger with the higher powers that are small is obviously that it opens up the market as to "who" can afford them... the younger and less mature.

But if you don't mind the larger size and want "no nonsense" I really like the laserglow.

I will still be in the future market for the best pocket laser I can find.. so far I keep getting too erratic of a stories and too high of a prices to consider wickedlaser..... maybe envee will be a good consideration or dragon laser, they too have very little negative writings to find on the net. I do wish they would crank up the power though.


I think I'm quite spoiled after messing with the Aries.. I"m sure I will be ruin't for life after playing with the Herc!

 

[pseudonomen137]

"Envee" lasers will have about the same beam specs as the Aries and CNI black/gold from what I've seen, though you do occasionally see lower divergence in all 3. The pump diode is important in trying to get the most power, but it all ends up as what you get out of the aperture. A 100mW greenie with a 500mW pump will be the same as one with a 2.5W pump assuming the same beam specs. Not to mention that 2.5W pump lasers often aren't run at that full spec, which can help with battery life.

I have never had a Herc and this is the first time I've heard about that pump diode adjustment... Pretty interesting. At current I only have two 'Envees', and one 'Aries' and both are to be sent in for RMA once I stop being lazy. Laserglow does not give the specs on the Aries though, they just get what CNI gives them. I'm not so sure about the Hercs.

The pen lasers are fine IMO when compared to Aries and such, though they are a bit more fragile, but I HATE DL and WL for them simply because they outright lie about their specs (overexaggerated power, divergence, etc). If you're wondering about the stability, its mostly because the larger case on Envee, Aries, etc. acts as a better heat sink, and then you have the fan with the Hercs.

For the price though, I also think optotronics can match laserglow. The duty cycle is the one factor that really needs to be fixed up, but otherwise you get better beam specs at a lower $/mW.

 

[windstrings]

"Envee" lasers will have about the same beam specs as the Aries and CNI black/gold from what I've seen, though you do occasionally see lower divergence in all 3. The pump diode is important in trying to get the most power, but it all ends up as what you get out of the aperture. A 100mW greenie with a 500mW pump will be the same as one with a 2.5W pump assuming the same beam specs. Not to mention that 2.5W pump lasers often aren't run at that full spec, which can help with battery life.

I have never had a Herc and this is the first time I've heard about that pump diode adjustment... Pretty interesting. At current I only have two 'Envees', and one 'Aries' and both are to be sent in for RMA once I stop being lazy. Laserglow does not give the specs on the Aries though, they just get what CNI gives them. I'm not so sure about the Hercs.

The pen lasers are fine IMO when compared to Aries and such, though they are a bit more fragile, but I HATE DL and WL for them simply because they outright lie about their specs (overexaggerated power, divergence, etc). If you're wondering about the stability, its mostly because the larger case on Envee, Aries, etc. acts as a better heat sink, and then you have the fan with the Hercs.

For the price though, I also think optotronics can match laserglow. The duty cycle is the one factor that really needs to be fixed up, but otherwise you get better beam specs at a lower $/mW.

I agree about optotronics.. the RPL models have alot going for them in power and size is nearly as small as the aries, but that shut off issue is a killer.... I have never gotten a straight answer as to why thats necessary.... a total overkill protection or do they really make that much heat?.. and why.. the PPL's don't seem to be so bad?. .. the only diff I see is the batteires and the bigger diode... but I do like thier small size... if they threw in a fan it may make a big difference, but then the question is "can the two C cells power a fan "and" the laser with its 2.5 W diode?"

*Anyway.... so it sounds like you feel Envee gives you an honest shake on thier specs for power and divergence?

*Is it comfortable in the pocket for size?

*And can they be tweaked "safely" to 125, or is that risky?

*I guess I'm wanting to hear all the reasons you would rather have a 100mw envee than a 125mw DL?

 

[pseudonomen137]

I don't know about the 'Envee' seller particularly. From their posts I gathered they knew quite little about lasers, though I didn't really read many of them. If the power they spec is true, they are definitely better than DL as the prices are more than fair, and a '125mW' DL probably wouldnt be much more powerful than a TRUE 100mW anyways. I don't know how accurate they are though. I would not advise modding any of these high power lasers because you're likely only going to get a few more mW and be taking a big risk in the process, but you never really know till you try it, and every laser will be different. Oh, and though I can get them into a pocket, I would far from call it "comfortable" pocket size. I would think of them more as slightly thinner Aries lasers without the large heatsink diameter as opposed to a thick pointer.

I think the RPLs are probably cut off sooner than necessary for saftey, but they do also produce a lot of heat. On dismantling one a bit, it also seemed like the heat dissipation was poorly designed. The Aries are a bit better, though there is also room for improvement.

TEC cooling would be nice on some of these although that would cause a significant hit to power consumption, and involve a complete redesign. Not to mention that that would also cause other heat-related dissipation problems. I can imagine it being fairly possible to redesign either the Aries or RPL with TEC, but I'm not sure if the manufacturer has enough incentive.

(Also I guess I should note that I've never directly purchased from laserglow or the envee seller, though some of the lasers I have are the exact same.)

 

[windstrings]

I did hear that TEC brings on instability issues... I suggested adding that to thier fan versions to lessen the size and use high density LiIon batteries, but voltage seems unstable with TEC.... I don't understand the details, but you would have a fan, TEC and laser all pulling off the battery... TEC alone does little unless you have a heatsink that can transfer that heat somewhere else... as you know, it simply removes the heat from one place to another and even adds alittle to boot for its own contribution, not to mention eats batteries.

I mentioned most hobbyist could care less if the runtime went from several hours to only 30 minutes as we would just throw in more batteries, but I was reminded that most of their customers "laserglow" are commercial and they need lots of runtime with stability, hence the external power jack on the Hercs.....

your right.. there needs to be incentive to make it worthwhile.

WL is exploring that path which is good, but they are also dealing with the instablities associated with it and charging dearly for the option to explore that with them.

For 2K, I can buy an aweful lot of power and stability.. far more than 200mw... so technology is only good if it actually accomplishes the goal.
Getting 200mw is not what I call a 2K goal, but if you have the money.. it would be no biggy.. but not in my budjet.. I would rather have my herc that cost me far less and will easily smoke the spyder. They need to bring that price way down to be practicle.

 

[windstrings]

Oh, and though I can get them into a pocket, I would far from call it "comfortable" pocket size. I would think of them more as slightly thinner Aries lasers without the large heatsink diameter as opposed to a thick pointer.

Humm.. that takes away alot of the incentive to put up with only 100mw.... now that you've pointed that out.. I would think DL may be a better choice.

If your gonna go big.. go big!!!

It wasn't long ago, I thought I could never deal with size bigger than the Aries, but after playing with it.. you can't really put it in your shirt pocket anyways.... except maybe your front jeans pocket, but it will definatley look like your packing!!!
It will be obvious and look funky.... so I personally figured, If It not pocket, I may as well go for the gusto!!!! so I bought a Herc.

I would still like to find another pocket laser in the future... I hate to buy another of what I already have "135mw".. it may have to do me for a while till something better pops up.

I will mention one more time, the Aries which is only 40 more mw's, but it has spoiled me as it has the impact and brightness as if it were 300 more mw's.. at least compared to the brightness of my 135mw.

I thought it was pretty cool till I fired up the Aries side by side... it made my pen laser look dull, while the Aries glowed a bright florescent green!.. and amazing difference!.. I have no reason for bending the truth.... it is what it is.

If I could find a small one in the 200mw range that was stable "even if it was for a short period" that would be sweet.
I'm not willing to spend 2K for it.

But laserglow has spoiled me with its detailed time graphs.. I don't see the others doing that.

I find in business, most things are not mentioned if its not an advertizing point!..in some cases.. not even the price!!!

The art of a majician is to only let you see what he wants you to see and nothing else.

 

[pseudonomen137]

Well, I liked the Envee because of the price, assuming the mW is accurate. If you just want power though, Aries prices have also dropped to amazing levels. Shirt pocket is out of the question with an envee, but pants pocket is do-able. Then again, I'm talking about the same type of pants pockets you can conceal TI graphing calculators in, so its still a big space. When I take some pictures of things later, if I'm not lazy (its a big if), I'll post a size comparison of the three.

 

[windstrings]

Well, I liked the Envee because of the price, assuming the mW is accurate. If you just want power though, Aries prices have also dropped to amazing levels. Shirt pocket is out of the question with an envee, but pants pocket is do-able. Then again, I'm talking about the same type of pants pockets you can conceal TI graphing calculators in, so its still a big space. When I take some pictures of things later, if I'm not lazy (its a big if), I'll post a size comparison of the three.

Nice!.... That would help settle it for me.. if the envee was more power, it would make the choice harder, but since thats not the case the only negative to the DL's that I see are the AAA batteries.. but thats no biggy if the batteries are decent.... like I said.. I don't need tons of runtime and I don't mind frequent battery changes when needed.

 

[pseudonomen137]

Well, I find the dishonest of DL to be a bit disturbing to mee, and I don't know if envees are any better, but considering the outputs they state, and what CNI has to offer, I wouldn't be too surprised if they were accurate. Not to mention they are somewhat more FDA compliant than pointers, they should be more solid and stable, and the prices are very good on the 80mW- models.

 

[windstrings]

Well, I find the dishonest of DL to be a bit disturbing to mee, and I don't know if envees are any better, but considering the outputs they state, and what CNI has to offer, I wouldn't be too surprised if they were accurate.

I'm confused by that statement..... it appears you caught DL being dishonest somehow?.. but yet then your saying you wouldn' be surprised if the stated output was accurate?

can you elaborate?