200mW green

Hey again everybody, I own a 95mW nexus from wickedlasers, (CNI type black and gold version) and it has instituted greed within me and I want more POWER- mostly for visibility of beam, but secondly for burning. IS there any green laser, that is in the same pen style body (not RPL or PPL) that can approach 200mW for a reasonable price? This newwish 200mW makes me want a TRUE 200mW green pointer. I love this nexus, but I just want more! Would 200mW even appear that much brighter than my 95mW? I have heard that quadrupling mW doubles brightness- is there any truth to that? If so, that would mean a 200mW would only be 1.5x brighter than my nexus, but I still think that would be superb! Lastly, do you guys think that in the next 5-10 years we will see 500mW pen style greenies, or have we maxed out the power at about 150mW given current battery and DPSS laser technology? Thanks for any insight you guys can provide!

Well, I dont know how applicable this is but I own 5mw and 40mw leadlights and a rpl 260. I thought the 40mw was bright until i got the 260. The 260 is visible under vary degree of moderate light conditions.

I took the 40mw and 260 outside the other night and the difference is very apparent. But, the main difference I notice is the divergence of the beams, the rpl seems to stay much tighter than the leadlight which could add to the brightness factor. I would agree with you that the increase in power does not stay true for the increase in brightness. This rpl is roughly 6-7 times more powerful than my leadlight but its not 6-7 times more brighter.

The 40mw was plenty bright for me, and im sure your 95mw would be ample enough for any eye candy purposes. Only reason i can see needing anything more powerful would be to burn stuff or do experiements which I have no desire to do.

Quite frankly, I have no need for a laser of this power and only got it for a trade that fell through. So i guess you could say im stuck with it, but im not complaining.

A TRUE 200mW green pointer will require a 1W diode. Two AAA alkaline batteries cannot put out ~2-3W to power the drive circuit of a 1W diode. Also, how the diode and lens assembly is more or less pressure-fit into a thin copper tube makes for poor heat dissipation. The heat from that 1W diode will have a hard time conducting through the body and into your hand (heatsink). That's why pen-style lasers do not approach TRUE 200mW green.

Dont forget about the fact that there is energy lost in both crystals due to ineffeciently (what do we get right now? 20% conversion?), and some that leaks entirely. Theoretically, if you could increase the efficienty of the crystals, you could reach much higher outputs. In theory, you could easily get 50% efficienty, meaing a 500mw IR would produce 250mw of green laserlight.

To be fair, though, the DX 200mw (leadlight) does pulse @ 200+mw, however, if you read the thread, there are soem issues getting it to produce even pulses of 200mw consistantly.

The way I understand it, though this is all a moot point with green diodes now being a reality (though AFAIK, not avalibel to the public yet) so we may soon be seeing high-powered greens in handhelds (soon being a relative term for 1-2 years). This is what I'm waiting on to get a green laser.