Buying My First Laser

Hello Everyone,

I have been reading around for a few weeks and would like to buy a Laser

Here is a list I made:

Wicked Fusion (125mW) $499
Wicked Spyder (200mW) $999

Optotronics PPL-120 (120-130 mW) $499
Optotronics PPL-260 (260-275 mW) $899

Laserglow Aries-150 (150-174mW) $899
Laserglow [font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Hercules-225 ([/font][font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]225-249mW) $1489

[/font] Want to be able to pop balloons from as far away as posible
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
I did read about some trouble with the Wicked 1st and 2nd Gen [/font]Spyder
(bigger beam looks cool, but not as strong as a small divergence beam of a Fusion 125mW)


Does the Laserglow [font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Hercules-225 [/font]2 Watt Pump Diode make it a better Laser?

I am scared to put out $1000 for a beam that may have divergence problems

I won't mind spending the $1000.00 BUT I couldn't take getting a dissapointing laser with a beam that is too big

I'm sure you guys hate these kinds of posts, But I need some help deciding!

Thanks

Joe

welcome to laserandshow group

Hmm I recall this in antoher forum, however I'll try to be of some help.

First just to clarify beam divergence there, a larger beam will always be able to be better colimated then a smaller one. This is why a beam expander works even better when the desire is to have the beam travel a great distance with as little spread as possible. The 3rd Gen spyders have a much improved beam compared to the 1st and 2nd generations that wer released.

However when deciding upon a laser, you need to take into consideration what you will be using it for. A pen Style laser, such as the Fusion is good if you will be using it for short periods of time. If your needs require a laser that can be left on for longer then a couple minutes, you are probably going to be interested in either a Spyder or Hercules. I believe the others have short duty cycles similar to the Fusion, well according to CNI anyway.

If you want to be able to pop balloons, a laser with a wider well colimated beam will pop them at a much greater distance then a smaller diamter beam laser. For example people have popped balloons with the red 650nm Pulsar laser at much greater distances then with the green pen style lasers. I've heard of 30-40 feet with the Pulsar. This is due to it's wider beam diamter which is better able to remain similar in size over a greater distance then the greens.

Anyway as you can see, the best thing to do is figure out exactly what you want it for and also if beam visibility is important... a red laser will not be very visible at all.

I found that if you stick a 100 ohm resistor from the housing (of the diode) and connect it to the pot of a leadlight 105 board, you can pop balloons (the red ones without markings) from about 7 feet away, i've been using it for about 10 - 20 seconds max on then leaving it to cool down, and i've lost no mw power from it, it seems to be steady and so far everything's seemed fine..

why do i say this?

well, why pay big big bucks for something you can do with a laser that costs only $40 with a couple of modifications, hell why not buy 10 of them for $400 then you can experiment all day long, greenlasers.co.uk show you how to make a 60mw monster with a standard 105 board, which would be good enough to pop a balloon from quite a way,,,,

but your choice, have fun

Interesting list Joe.
I am looking for a laser as well but I need a really sturdy one.
To be used for rescue purpose in case i m stuck in the desert again.

JoeLaser said:

Hello Everyone,
Wicked Fusion (125mW) $499
Wicked Spyder (200mW) $999

Optotronics PPL-120 (120-130 mW) $499
Optotronics PPL-260 (260-275 mW) $899

Laserglow Aries-150 (150-174mW) $899
Laserglow [font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Hercules-225 ([/font][font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]225-249mW) $1489
Joe

Click to expand...

JoeLaser said:

Does the Laserglow [font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Hercules-225 [/font]2 Watt Pump Diode make it a better Laser?

I am scared to put out $1000 for a beam that may have divergence problems

I won't mind spending the $1000.00 BUT I couldn't take getting a dissapointing laser with a beam that is too big

I'm sure you guys hate these kinds of posts, But I need some help deciding!

Thanks

Joe

Click to expand...

Hi Joe,
Your right to want a laser with the smallest beam diameter as possible, given the divergence in mrad is the same. The reason being that burning power/ or concentration of light is determined by both the output power and the area that the output power is concentrated in.

For instance a 250mW laser with a 1.5mm diameter beam has 141mW/square millimeter of area.
To find the area if the beam, you use the formula Area= Pi X (Radius of beam squared) or 3.1415 X (.75 X .75), the result is 1.767 square millimeters. your output power divided by 1.767 is your Watts/ square millimeter.

If with this same 250mW, the beam diameter was 2 mm instead of the previous 1.5mm, the concentration of power decreases down to 79.5mW/square millimeter. So you can see, a very small increase in beam diameter will cause a hugh drop in power per sq. mm. In fact the power per sq. mm. is the same for a 140mW laser with a 1.5mm beam as it is for a 250mW laser with a 2mm beam. Conversely for a laser with a 2mm beam diameter to have the same burning power as a 250mW laser that has a 1.5mm beam diameter, it would need an output power of between 444 and 445 mW. These numbers show that beam diameter is just as important if not more so to the burning ability of any laser (given equal wavelength and divergence).

To answer your other question.
The more power the diode is rated at, the more IR it is capable of emitting, but that too only 1/2 the equation. The size of the crystals and even more important, the quality and purity of those crystals is even more important.

A 1.2 Watt IR diode is easily capable of 350mW or more with quality crystals. If you were able to just upgrade the diode to 2W and use the same crystals, the output of the laser would not change....But what would change is how fast your batteries go dead. This is because a 2W diode usually requires more current passing through it to turn on or lase.

If you have more questions, feel free to email me at my website. Rest assured, I make sure every gets what they pay for and treat them the way I would want to be treated if I were the customer.

Jack

Wow,

That was some cool info, THANKS

What is the duty cycle on the PPL-120 / PPL-225 / PPL-260 ?

This may be a stupid question, But Why don't any of the companies make a laser with an adjustable focus ?

Or at least sell it as an add on ?

Thanks Again

Joe

While the thinner beams do provide much more enrgy in a condensed area to perform tricks such as match lighting etc. A thinner beam will diverge at a greater rate then a wider one, hence why beam expanders/colimators work so well over a long distance. This is what I was trying to get at with talking about the wider beam in certain lasers.

However for certain things, such as the mentioned match lighting...you will need the small beam to provide enough energy to light it, unless the laser is very powerful(200+mW). With the smaller beam diameter lasers, match lighting is accomplished with outputs of around 90-100mW. As for poping balloons, they should be able to pop them at 10 feet or so, guesstimate..

About the adjustable focus, that's a good question. Generally companies are more concerned with a well colimated beam. Though I've seen a red laser pointer somewhere with an adjustable focus, can't quite remember where.

Why is it that a thin beam has to expand at a greater rate? Is this a function of the cramped space and optics used? If not, why can't you have a thin emerging beam that stays as it is for long distances? I thought collimation gets parallel rays, but those rays can be parallel with a diameter of 1mm, 4mm, 2 cm, etc?

Have any of you guys seen this?

http://amazing1.com/burning-lasers.htm

Burning Laser Ray Gun

I bet you could pop a few balloons with that huh ?

Joe

pixar said:

Why is it that a thin beam has to expand at a greater rate? Is this a function of the cramped space and optics used? If not, why can't you have a thin emerging beam that stays as it is for long distances? I thought collimation gets parallel rays, but those rays can be parallel with a diameter of 1mm, 4mm, 2 cm, etc?

Click to expand...

There's no way of producing a perfectly collimated beam. It'll always have some divergence. The laws of physiscs don't permit that to happen, basically due to diffraction, and the nature of light.

Normally, a beam with a smaller diameter will have a higher divergence than a beam with a bigger diameter (considering the samewavelength). On the other hand, if you have two beams with the same diameter but with different wavelengths, the longer wavelength will have a bigger divergence too.

As you can see, if you have a given laser and expand its beam by 7x, you'll also decrease its divergence by 7x and, therefore, at long distances you can have a smaller spot with the expanded beam. But this only works at long distances. At short distances the expanded beam will still have a bigger spot.

Hope this helps

JoeLaser said:

Have any of you guys seen this?

http://amazing1.com/burning-lasers.htm

Burning Laser Ray Gun

I bet you could pop a few balloons with that huh ?

Joe

Click to expand...

I'm not sure wether you can pop a baloon with that "gun". Some plastics become transparent in the IR part of the spectrum. I haven't had any experience with CO2 lasers though, so I can't say for sure. But one thing is clear, with 20watts of IR light, you CAN burn wood, maybe even etch some metals, and for sure, you can also burn your retinas :thumbsdow. So be careful around CO2 lasers

Wouldn't it be cheaper to use darts to pop the balloons? Or a bb gun?

James

------------------
Redline Lasers

manateemedia said:

Wouldn't it be cheaper to use darts to pop the balloons? Or a bb gun?

Click to expand...

Indeed it would be, and a lot more fun imo