How bright these blue lasers be?

So, I know the dif. in brightness between, say, a 650nm 10mw red beam and a 532nm 10mw green beam - how would, say, a 473nm 10mw blue beam compare???

:huh2:

It would be slightly brighter then the red, but not by much. With a 10mW green 532nm laser, you can still see the beam in the dark slightly..you won't with a 10mW blue unles you use fog/smoke (same with the red of course).

Thanks - So what would be about "even" among the three colors in brightness - something like a 5mw green, 20mw red, 15mw blue? That's probably not right.... :laughing:

I have a 10mw green that is amazingly bright, even alongside my ~40mw red....

Color balance is something not very well understood as many variables are involved. As a general rule you want 1 part green, 4 parts red and 2 parts blue. But I've seen good results with 1 part green and blue and 4 red. It also depends on the wavelength you use for red and blue. If you have 670nm instead of 650, you'll want more than 4 parts. Also, if using 488 instead of 473 you'll need less than 2. The eyes of the beholder are something to consider also

So in the end, you have to experiment a little, but the results will more than likely be good enough with whatever you use:touche:

Sooo... 10mW green, 16mW blue 488, and 30to 40mW red 650 sounds about right to me... Damn, I still have WAY TOO MUCH green in my set up...

The Fact is If you get 3 lasers of the same output but different colors(red,blue,green)

Green would be most visible
Blue would come second
and red would come third

Human eyes are most sensitive to green colors. although I am not sure about the red and blues, I would believe that the blue would be ranked in the 2nd place according to the visibility of the beam, Please do correct me if I am wrong

Best Regards, Satoru

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:touche:

You're likely right.... I notice that in "moderately priced" RGB laser shows for sale, the least powerful aspect is the blue laser, but probably simply because of expense....

The "cheapest" blue lasers I have been able to find (modules not argon) are:

5mW US$780.00
10mW US$820.00
20mW US$860.00
30mW US$920.00

some place out of Shanghai.... oh well.....

We have just begun pre-sales on our RPL-Blue.
Same size and body as the RPL and has 10mW output power of 473nm.

The pre-sales price is $799

Jack

I find the 437nm Blue lasers to be fairly dim compared to the greens (obviously) of the same strength but in a smoked room, the 40mW Blues are quite mesmerising to the eyes... These new diode lasers are a deeper blue than typical Argon outputs.

The pic I took here of a Prototype Wicked Spyder is 40mW and to be perfectly frank, I felt that any less output would have resulted in a very hard to see beam.
This is how the blue beam looks in a moderately smoked room (using incense)


Here's the same 40mW Blue alongside a 10mW green and a 100mW red in a room with a small fog machine.


Without the fog or smoke... the blue beam (even at 40mW) is simply hard to see unless in total darkness and close to the line of sight. Be aware that 2-10mW blue diode lasers are going to require heavy fog or smoke in order to make out the beam. The dot is peculiar though... and there was a slight tinge of violet to the dot... but this was more visible and obvious as the power consumption drained the batteries.

I'm VERY fond of blue for a laser wavelength... shame I had to return the one I was testing.

Aiki1 said:

So, I know the dif. in brightness between, say, a 650nm 10mw red beam and a 532nm 10mw green beam - how would, say, a 473nm 10mw blue beam compare???

:huh2:

Click to expand...

Relative and apparent brightness of various wavelengths this chart is taken from SAMS LASER FAQ. http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/laserioi.htm#ioicav2
350 nm .00001? UV
380 nm .0002 Near UV
400 nm .0028 Border UV Nichia violet GaN laser diode
410 nm .0074 " "
420 nm .0175 Violet
442 nm .0398 Violet-blue Violet-blue line of HeCd laser
450 nm .0468 Blue
457.5 nm .0556 " Blue frequency doubled Nd:YVO4
457.9 nm .0562 " Blue line of argon ion laser
473 nm .104 " Blue frequency doubled Nd:YAG
488 nm .191 Green-blue Green-blue line of argon ion laser
500 nm .323 Blue-green
510 nm .503 Green Emerald green line of copper vapor laser
514.5 nm .588 " Green line of argon ion laser
532 nm .885 " Green frequency doubled Nd:YAG or Nd:YVO4
543.5 nm .974 " Green HeNe laser
550 nm .995 Yellow-green
555 nm 1.000 " Reference (peak) wavelength
567 nm .969 " Green line of Helium-Mercury laser
568 nm .964 " Y-G line of some krypton ion lasers
578 nm .889 Yellow Gold line of copper vapor laser
580 nm .870 "
594.1 nm .706 Orange-yellow Yellow HeNe laser
600 nm .631 Orange
611.9 nm .479 Red-orange Orange HeNe laser
615 nm .441 " Orange line of Helium-Mercury laser
627 nm .298 " Orange line of Gold Vapor Laser
632.8 nm .237 Orange-red Red HeNe laser
635 nm .217 " Laser diode (DVD, newer laser pointers)
640 nm .175 " "
645 nm .138 " "
647.1 nm .125 Red Red line of krypton or Ar/Kr ion laser
650 nm .107 " Laser diode (DVD, newer laser pointers)
655 nm .082 " Laser diode
660 nm .061 " "
670 nm .032 " Laser diode (UPC scanners, old pointers)
680 nm .017 "
685 nm .0119 Deep red
690 nm .0082 "
694.3 nm .006 " Ruby laser
700 nm .0041 Border IR
750 nm .00012 Near IR
780 nm .000015 " CD player/CDROM/LaserDisc laser diode
800 nm 3.7*10-6 " Laser diodes for pumping Nd:YAG, Nd:YVO4
850 nm 1.1*10-7 "
900 nm 3.2*10-9 "
1,064 nm 3*10-14 " Nd lasers (including YAG)
1,523.1 nm 0.0000 " IR HeNe laser
3,390 nm 0.0000 Mid-IR IR HeNe laser
10,600 nm 0.0000 Far-IR CO2 laser

This is according to the 1988 C.I.E. Photopic Luminous Efficiency Function. A plot of these data may be found in Response of Human Eye Versus Wavelength. The C.I.E. (Committee Internationale d'Eclairage) may also be known by other initials indicating the English translation (ICI for "International Commission on Illumination").

Great pics and info guys, thanks. Looks like I'll still have to wait for the prices to drop.... one of these years....