Wicked Lasers Krypton "1W"

[electron]

Well since I already own the Artics, G1 & G2 I went ahead and ordered an Arctic G2 with the newer V2 SmartSwitch. I was very impressed this time around with Wicked Lasers, they sent me a tracking number 4 days after I placed the order, and Tracking showed it was already in Country being processed by Customs. So I sent WL a support question and got an answer back in less than 30mins; very impressed with that compared to the past.

I simply *love* V2 of the SmartSwitch, but I still felt I was missing something for my collection.....Oh yes, I didn't have a Krypton that is what the collection didn't have.

So I decided since I had a very good experience this time around with both the shipping time and an answer to a support question with the newer Arctic, I knew it was time to order a Krypton.

On topic now, I ordered a Krypton 1W with all the trimmings, same thing again, Wicked Lasers sent me a tracking number in 4 days and it again was already in the country being processed by Customs USPS showed.
I must say Wicked Lasers has really stepped-up the their shipping and support systems, I'm very impressed.

The Krypton 1W just like the Arctic's come with a very high quality Sanyo battery and have been for a long time now I'm told.

The Krypton 1W arrived safe & sound with all the accessories that WL makes for them.

The Krypton 1W feels really good in the hands, and is actually longer than the Arctic. During testing I found it has very little IR getting through, so I'm very happy that it is properly IR filtered.

Now on to some pictures;

Now for a picture of the Arctic's since I mentioned them too;

And here are the Arctic's along with the Krypton 1W, so you can get a feel for the size difference;

I wanted to use my Melles Griot Beam Expander's on the Krypton 1W since I have them, the one in this picture is of the 10x model. I took out one of the lenses from one of the screw-in lenses and was able to perfectly press it into that lens housing while screwed into the Krypton 1W. I'm not able at this time though to be able to mount it into the tripod because it's only pressed into that lens housing and it does separate too easily; it does lineup perfectly though; need to get a real threaded adapter for it.

In this picture I did the same thing with my Dragon Lasers 10x Beam Expander, pretty much the same story as with the Melles Griot;

Now onto the power test graphs, I follow the manufactures recommended duty cycles when doing most of my tests; However the Krypton 1W states it is continuous duty. So doing things like popping a balloon, lighting a match, etc takes well less than a minute with the Krypton 1W. I at first though was holding my run time to 1 minute during my tests as I was already done with the usual can it burn this and that tests, so running it longer seemed pointless.

Again though, it's states continuous duty cycle, so I thought why not, I'll Meter it using triple the amount of time I was testing it and which is way beyond any time frame that I have any usefulness of really using the Laser. So here is a full 3 minutes of the Krypton 1W on my Coherent LabMax-TOP Meter. It was a bit cool outside 70 degrees F, and I have the front door open, but in my back room where I'm setup to test, there is no air movement that I can detect and the temperature in that room I measured @ 72 degrees F with a Fluke IR temperature Meter. So here is the results I got;

Here is the same results, I dumped the data from the Coherent Meter into a spreadsheet for those that like to see spreadsheets;

So you can see my Krypton 1W Laser Max's out @ 738mW's and it's Average is 712mW's ....... so no it's not hitting the 1W mark, it's a nice addition to my Arctic collection.

 

[jimdt7]

Very nice and detailed review man but your
laser is underspec
+1 :beer:

Jim

 

[lasersbee]

Nice detailed review...:gj:

I feel for you.... getting lied to by WL that you will receive
a 1000mW Laser when your's can't even hit 80% of what
they advertise... Whodathought

But then again there was plenty of fore warning....

33 Reasons NOT to Buy From Wicked Lasers

Too bad your new 4 wheeled car only has 3 wheels...

As long as you are happy with your underspec WL
Laser.... I know I wouldn't be....


Jerry

 

[electron]

Thanks, Yes I pretty much figured it probably wasn't going to hit the full 1W based on the fact I have several Arctic "1W" Lasers and they don't either; to be truthful though I was hoping it would. According to WL's webpage it is in range of what the published tech spec is.

They used to publish the nominal power output of the Arctic's as 750mW's and my Arctic's are well within that range, so it looks like the Krypton 1W is no different.

The SmartSwitch V2 is really nice, you can basically turn-off the beam, change out your lens, and then with a single touch of the button turn it right back on in the mode you left it. That was the downside of the SmartSwitch V1 in my opinion, when you wanted to change out a lens, you'd have to turn it completely off and then start all over again with the codes and such to turn it back on again........V2 is much better.

The Beam on the Krypton 1W is really bright and tight, it burns great too.

 

[Ghostchrome]

Nice detailed review...:gj:

I feel for you.... getting lied to by WL that you will receive
a 1000mW Laser when your's can't even hit 80% of what
they advertise... Whodathought

But then again there was plenty of fore warning....

33 Reasons NOT to Buy From Wicked Lasers

Too bad your new 4 wheeled car only has 3 wheels...

As long as you are happy with your underspec WL
Laser.... I know I wouldn't be....


Jerry

Yes, but the host is so cool!!!1!



Seriously, I don't understand the $1000 boner that people get from these hosts...

Anyway, nice review. :beer:

 

[electron]

Yes the host is very cool indeed.....I love it. To be fair though I did email WL support, and I was told if I wasn't happy with it I could return it for a full refund.

 

[Ghostchrome]

Ah, well that's good. Good to hear they are being responsive.

 

[lasersbee]

Yes, but the host is so cool!!!1!



Seriously, I don't understand the $1000 boner that people get from these hosts...

Anyway, nice review. :beer:

If it was only for the host.... one could pick up a
non functioning Arctic for probably <$100.


Jerry

 

[offroadfreak8582]

i really love the laser would like it more if it were advertised as 750mW laser and for a price like say 600-700 dollar.

They would have a far greater turnover and more happy customers. Which leads into less returns & less problems with customer service

just my look on it..

greetings,

 

[lasersbee]

That's exactly what they should be doing.... but WL is GREEDY
and seems to like it's reputation as LIARS....

Jerry

 

[yobresal]

Very nice and detailed review man but your
laser is underspec
+1 :beer:

Jim

Nice detailed review...:gj:

I feel for you.... getting lied to by WL that you will receive
a 1000mW Laser when your's can't even hit 80% of what
they advertise... Whodathought


As long as you are happy with your underspec WL
Laser.... I know I wouldn't be....


Jerry

Great laser!!!! Nice output. I don't know what these guys are talking about saying that it is underspec. The website clearly states the output range of this laser to be 500-1000mW. This laser IS IN SPEC. Did you guys read the technical specs for this laser? I've noticed lately that people either do not know the listed specs of the lasers or they just refuse to acknowledge them because the laser is listed as 1000mW instead of
"500-1000mW Kryton" I guess it can be pretty confusing.

 

[offroadfreak8582]

Great laser!!!! Nice output. I don't know what these guys are talking about saying that it is underspec. The website clearly states the output range of this laser to be 500-1000mW. This laser IS IN SPEC. Did you guys read the technical specs for this laser? It's

500-1000mW? thats like buying a car with 100-500 HP nothing personal on the laser though that's a great laser

Greetings,,

EDIT:
I know wickedlasers says it is 100% IR filtered but can you do a lpm with IR block?

 

[yobresal]

It would actually be more like buying a car that has 250-500 HP. But yes that is a good analogy. If I were buying a car and I saw it listed in the paper as "500HP Sports Car" and then read the article explaining that the horsepower could be anywhere between 250HP-500HP then I would make my decision to purchase the car with the expectation that it would be in that range. If it was not in that range then there would be an issue.
I just reviewed my E3 from WL and it is 160mW....am I pissed off that it is not 300mW? no. I read and accepted the fact that it would be between 150-300mW.

 

[romogracie]

Have you measured the divergence?

Mine is pretty bad @ 1.9 mrad.

 

[Jaseth]

It would actually be more like buying a car that has 250-500 HP. But yes that is a good analogy. If I were buying a car and I saw it listed in the paper as "500HP Sports Car" and then read the article explaining that the horsepower could be anywhere between 250HP-500HP then I would make my decision to purchase the car with the expectation that it would be in that range. If it was not then there would be an issue.

Problem is, the power is NOT anywhere between 500mW and 1000mW. It is quite consistently between 600mW and 850mW.
If you brewed a batch of beer and measured the the strongest batch at 8% and the weakest at 5%, you wouldn't label it "Beer - 10%" even if you did add a footnote about it being at least 5%.

 

[yobresal]

Let's stop talking about cars and beer. Let's just stick with the lasers.
If you are claiming that none of the Krytons are 500-600mW or 850-1000mW then you are mistaken. They sell Krytons with output powers all over the range of 500-1000mW. It would make sense that the majority have an output that falls in the middle. That actually supports the argument that the range they have listed is accurate. If the majority had an output of 500-750mW then I would be more concerned with the accuracy of the published range.