XPL discussion - the mystery company

[Koff]

Yea im sure. It sees my other green's IR

 

[diachi]

Yea im sure. It sees my other green's IR

Likely LD/Crystal then if it's still pulling power.

 

[kaunak]

If you have a multimeter you can see what kind of current it's pulling.. just don't look into the aperture in case it flashes on. For 150mW it should be something like 650mA. I would agree with diachi that if it heats up with no green or IR light then the diode is probably damaged.

I should also mention that since recharging the battery in the 311 it has been behaving somewhat normally again. Still flashes occasionally but it's not bad like before.

 

[KMitch]

Thank you guys for buying these lasers from XPL without much information on their products. I was planning to buy a 1W green, but now I might try for something cheaper in a 311 host. Your reviews probably saved a lot of us some serious money, especially those eyeing the 1.5 or 2W greens.

 

[dden4012]

I will recommend XPL to the people who's first post in this forum are about what is the most powerful laser i can buy or I want to buy a laser that meets prerequisites 1-10 and has to be under $100 now research for me. Im so suspicious of those posts...

 

[CaliKirk]

I wish I could say I'd recommend them to others but morally I cannot. When people come in that are looking for the biggest and baddest laser, its our duty to inform them on what we feel is the proper choice, not just for raw power but also safety for both them and the safety of the laser itself and how long it will last. Not saying all XPL lasers will have problems but so far there has only been about 2 ( that I've heard of) successful XPL purchases (on the forum) and with those that were successful, the owners had negative things to say that didn't match the specifications or their expectations. If it was purchased from an established company there would be no excuse for these issues but unfortunately with XPL it ends up being justified cause of the overall price.

It would totally be another story if XPL properly advertised the specs of their lasers with the true stability (not just average numbers), TEM modes, proper operating temperatures (mine doesn't match spec) and duty cycles, then in the end it's on the buyer for choosing a cheap laser with bad specs. What I don't really understand are the issues that seem to be happening are 101 type problems; improper heatsinking of components, bad crystal alignment, bad component alignment, and/or parts not being properly supported/ rattling around.

At the time I purchased my 1W, XPL was being touted as a 'miracle company' and unfortunately I was going off of the way they were being represented and I thoughtlessly bit the bullet. If I had known half of the issues im running into with my 1w, I definitely wouldnt have purchased from XPL. I have wasted so much time and energy at this point trying to have XPL make it right that it's really a huge regret on my part. Although everyone loves to save money, it sounds like a reoccurring scenario of regret to have not spent the extra money in the first place by purchasing from companies like Jetlasers, laser glow, laserBTB etc..

If I can help others with my situation then I guess I can say my purchase wasnt completely useless. :bowdown:

As far as the new host saga, personally I think that the issues their 532 lasers have are starting to accumulate with many returns/refunds that XPL is having to re-engineer their design. There's a reason why companies charge as much as they do for high powered 532s as there's alot of issues that can go wrong and need to be properly addressed beforehand.

I have a feeling that XPLs 532 prices are going to raise, not just cause the cost of the new host, but because they are having to properly address these issues which inevitably is more time on their part and more than likely more expensive parts and in turn the price will have to rise for them to stay afloat. I think the majority of people will be more than willing to spend the extra money if they know they are getting a rock solid DPSS laser, I know I definitely would have.

 

[Sta]

I wish I could say I'd recommend them to others but morally I cannot. When people come in that are looking for the biggest and baddest laser, its our duty to inform them on what we feel is the proper choice, not just for raw power but also safety for both them and the safety of the laser itself and how long it will last. Not saying all XPL lasers will have problems but so far there has only been about 2 successful XPL purchases (on the forum) and with those that were successful, the owners had negative things to say that didn't match the specifications or their expectations. If it was purchased from an established company there would be no excuse for these issues but unfortunately with XPL it ends up being justified cause of the overall price.

It would totally be another story if XPL properly advertised the specs of their lasers with the true stability (not just average numbers), TEM modes, proper operating temperatures (mine doesn't match spec) and duty cycles, then in the end it's on the buyer for choosing a cheap laser with bad specs. What I don't really understand are the issues that seem to be happening are 101 type problems; improper heatsinking of components, bad crystal alignment, bad component alignment, and/or parts not being properly supported/ rattling around.

At the time I purchased my 1W, XPL was being touted as a 'miracle company' and unfortunately I was going off of the way they were being represented and I thoughtlessly bit the bullet. If I had known half of the issues im running into with my 1w, I definitely wouldnt have purchased from XPL. I have wasted so much time and energy at this point trying to have XPL make it right that it's really a huge regret on my part. Although everyone loves to save money, it sounds like a reoccurring scenario of regret to have not spent the extra money in the first place by purchasing from companies like Jetlasers, laser glow, laserBTB etc..

If I can help others with my situation then I guess I can say my purchase wasnt completely useless. :bowdown:

As far as the new host saga, personally I think that the issues their 532 lasers have are starting to accumulate with many returns/refunds that XPL is having to re-engineer their design. There's a reason why companies charge as much as they do for high powered 532s as there's alot of issues that can go wrong and need to be properly addressed beforehand.

I have a feeling that XPLs 532 prices are going to raise, not just cause the cost of the new host, but because they are having to properly address these issues which inevitably is more time on their part and more than likely more expensive parts and in turn the price will have to rise for them to stay afloat. I think the majority of people will be more than willing to spend the extra money if they know they are getting a rock solid DPSS laser, I know I definitely would have.

Cali, I understand your viewpoint. These events have certainly changed my opinion of XPL. I will talk to Peng about him changing the data to more accurately reflect the real values.

But there have actually been more than 2 successful purchases - I know at least 3-4 people purchase the XPL 532 500mW and were all satisfied without complaints. Some of them haven't posted here - 2 of them, I believe, only contacted me by PM.

By the way, Peng sent me a drawing of the new host.

I have asked him for some more specifics.

 

[Sta]

I spoke with Peng today about the new host.
He did not plan to include fan-cooling, but I convinced him to add it.
As a result, the new host will likely have unlimited duty cycle, and should rectify a good percentage of the mode-hopping from the old host.
Because of the fan, this new host will also be much wider (40mm head diameter), and thus have a significantly larger heatsink.
I also convinced him to use a 26650 configuration rather than 18650, since the wider diameter allows this. Of course, the battery tube will still be thinner than the head.

This all sounds quite good! Can't wait to see the final result.

 

[CaliKirk]

Here's to another 6 months of wait time :beer:

I'd imagine there are probably alot of very satisfied XPL customers but on LPF I have only heard of a couple, so I apologize. XPL reviews on the forum are few and far between, and the couple people that have given any feedback at all on the forum, besides yourself, ended up being negative.

I'm not trying to bash XPL man, but I will share the truth about my experience to help others avoid going through what I went through, and also seeing others go through as well.

I think that a year from now XPL will have fixed these bugs but currently as far as recommending them to others, I will not.

That's great that he says he will address these problems but why hasn't Peng thought of these things on his own? Active cooling or just proper heatsinking should have been one of the first things to tackle on such high powered DPSS and correct me if I'm wrong but the way it seems is that without you (Sta) he wouldn't even known it was a real issue? I mean after all the months of waiting for the new host and the logistics involved in manufacturing, and now they are redesigning the new host again?

 

[ElectricPlasma]

Yea, Calikirk you basically nailed it. Would rep you if I could.

In my opinion the negatives outweigh the positives, and the price-to-power ratio has turned out to be the only good thing about this company. I guess when it comes to things like this you get what you pay for. And in the end I would much rather be paying for a higher quality laser with a higher price. Besides, beam characteristics is one big reason why I would get dpss green, and mode hoping would be a deal breaker for me.

 

[Sta]

Here's to another 6 months of wait time :beer:

I'd imagine there are probably alot of very satisfied XPL customers but on LPF I have only heard of a couple, so I apologize. XPL reviews on the forum are few and far between, and the couple people that have given any feedback at all on the forum, besides yourself, ended up being negative.

I'm not trying to bash XPL man, but I will share the truth about my experience to help others avoid going through what I went through, and also seeing others go through as well.

I think that a year from now XPL will have fixed these bugs but currently as far as recommending them to others, I will not.

That's great that he says he will address these problems but why hasn't Peng thought of these things on his own? Active cooling or just proper heatsinking should have been one of the first things to tackle on such high powered DPSS and correct me if I'm wrong but the way it seems is that without you (Sta) he wouldn't even known it was a real issue? I mean after all the months of waiting for the new host and the logistics involved in manufacturing, and now they are redesigning the new host again?

I do not think that it will take 6 months. A great deal of the time (June-August) went to designing the driver. Once that was completed, the host design did not take very long.

I can definitely understand your reasoning and for the time being I wouldn't recommend them either. After they finish their new hosts -- and I purchase one of them -- we will have some more information.

About these problems - it's not that Peng didn't know about them, he just felt that other concerns outweighed them (sometimes quite literally). He decided against using a copper heatsink because he believed it made the host too heavy. But we laserists prefer heavy hosts! He didn't want to use a fan because it would make the host too wide. But most of us prefer unlimited duty cycle anyways.

Basically, Peng didn't have enough feedback. Most customers in the US weren't buying his company's handheld lasers, they were buying his company's laser Christmas lights. It was the people in China who bought the handheld lasers, and most of them did not care about mode hopping or duty cycle. We here on the forum are very meticulous about the lasers' specifications, but most of the customers in China are not.

Now that we know about his company, we can help.

 

[diachi]

Cali, I understand your viewpoint. These events have certainly changed my opinion of XPL. I will talk to Peng about him changing the data to more accurately reflect the real values.

But there have actually been more than 2 successful purchases - I know at least 3-4 people purchase the XPL 532 500mW and were all satisfied without complaints. Some of them haven't posted here - 2 of them, I believe, only contacted me by PM.

By the way, Peng sent me a drawing of the new host.



I have asked him for some more specifics.

So 2 out of 6 had issues? That's only 66% satisfaction - not good enough for me to recommend.

I spoke with Peng today about the new host.
He did not plan to include fan-cooling, but I convinced him to add it.
As a result, the new host will likely have unlimited duty cycle, and should rectify a good percentage of the mode-hopping from the old host.
Because of the fan, this new host will also be much wider (40mm head diameter), and thus have a significantly larger heatsink.
I also convinced him to use a 26650 configuration rather than 18650, since the wider diameter allows this. Of course, the battery tube will still be thinner than the head.

This all sounds quite good! Can't wait to see the final result.

Mode hopping isn't just down to temperature, that contributes, but it's a result of cavity design and optics choices too. At these powers a fan may not offer much improvement, you need to remove a lot of heat from both the diode and the Vanadate. Not to mention KTP really likes to be at the right temperature, that's hard (if not impossible) to achieve for any length of time with just a fan. The diode also likes to be at the right temperature so that the wavelength matches the absorption of the Vanadate well. Vanadate is a little better than YAG in the regard but peak efficiency is still only achieved within a band of about 1-2nm or so. That's not even accounting for thermal lensing or other thermal effects.

Active cooling (meaning TECs) is the way to go at these sorts of powers. Extracting that much power out of a linear cavity with any sort of stability gets tricky too. You see that picture in my signature/avatar? That's a very well designed linear cavity with proper thermal management and high quality optics. It's pumped at ~15-18W and still only produces 2W. The heatsink on it is massive. The KTP is around 15mm long and the faces are a good 3 or 4mm on each side, the Vanadate is high quality and optically bonded to the mirrors. It has three TECs that look to be around 40W each (Two for the LD, one for the Vanadate and KTP). That's what it takes to produce those sorts of powers with good results - at least for now.

Take a look at the Hercules from Laser Glow - those are only offered up to 700mW and have both themoelectric cooling and a fan. Anyone can dump a bunch of power into a cavity (for fairly cheap too) and have it produce lots of output but it won't be at all stable or necessarily efficient.

I'm not bashing, but there's a reason that high power DPSS lasers are expensive, even from China.

 

[ElectricPlasma]

So 2 out of 6 had issues? That's only 66% satisfaction - not good enough for me to recommend.

Little hick-up, there; 2 out of 6 is 33% satisfaction. Not 66%. One of those nights eh?

Edit: ohhh we were thinking opposite then. didn't read

 

[diachi]

Little hick-up, there; 2 out of 6 is 33% satisfaction. Not 66%. One of those nights eh?

It is one of those nights but it is also 66%. 4 were satisfied, 2 weren't. That's 2 out of 6 or 66.666 >%.

 

[Sta]

It is one of those nights but it is also 66%. 4 were satisfied, 2 weren't. That's 2 out of 6 or 33.3333>%.

There are also 2 people who purchasd the RG:Y lasers, I believe. I think they were also both satisfied.

I think that we're seeing a pattern; the 500mW 532nm and RG:Y units are solid, the >1W 532 and lower-power 532s may not be.

 

[CaliKirk]

Get that satisfaction percentage up!!