Looking for a laser...

[ATEspo]

Hello all, I am new here, found this place while I was hunting a green/blue laser. I have no idea where to look (besides eBay, and I have a feeling thats a bad place to shop for a laser). I want a green or blue/violet laser, something stronger than your average 5mW laser, but dont want to spend too much $. Any help would be great! IF you can just point me in the right direction as far as where to find good quality lasers, that would be great.

Thank you in advance!

[Freeze_XJ]

Well, with lasers you pay for quality Picking up a cheap one at DealExtreme (.com) is easy, but it might just break, be badly collimated or otherwise be lame. If you want a reliable thing, that's more than a toy, prepare to shell out more bucks. That said, for most applications (presentations, playing with the cat, or pointing stars out), the simple things do well enough provided you didn't hit a real lemon (which you can send back).

[mattmagic100]

you want to make sure that you buy a laser thats up to spec. a lot of the lasers from dealextreme and o-like are usually up to spec and have a long run time.

[deany]

Many ways you can find the laser , 10mW laser will be around USD 15 , i think that is what you need .

[bigslick]

Check out dealextreme. While they're not the greatest, i have one and it was cheap. I like it for what it is.

[deany]

What is price for your laser form DX??

[Mik]

DX, chinavasion.com or HDEshop.com (ships from US), are some vendors that have inexpensive Chinese lasers.

If you don't want to burn things, I would suggest a 30mW green laser. It will be plenty bright, inexpensive and not quite as hazardous as the higher powered units. Actual blue lasers are still very expensive, so you'll probably want the 405nm blu-ray type lasers if you want somthing close to blue.

The 10mw Chicom 405nm such as this is okay, but will look dim and boring compared to a similar power green laser. Unless you are completely convinced that you need a violet laser, just pick up a green one and have fun with it.

[vcw]

What's your price range?

[pwatcher]

From what I've read, a 5 w laser isn't likely to cause permanent eye damage if it reflects off of some shiny object back to your (or someone else's) eyes for a brief instant. However, over 5 w CAN more easily cause damage. For that reason, the two lasers that I have are 5w or less, and are still plenty bright for pointing out distant objects, or signaling. I paid a mere $39 on ebay for a new, green 5w laser made by Wicked Lasers.

[vcw]

I'm sure you mean 5mW, not 5W ; as 5W will cause permanent damage to your eyes instantly, even if you get hit on the eye when the beam is shined off an object. :O

[SmurfTacular]

Hello all, I am new here, found this place while I was hunting a green/blue laser. I have no idea where to look (besides eBay, and I have a feeling thats a bad place to shop for a laser). I want a green or blue/violet laser, something stronger than your average 5mW laser, but dont want to spend too much $. Any help would be great! IF you can just point me in the right direction as far as where to find good quality lasers, that would be great.

Thank you in advance!

AAA build

http://www.focalprice.com/LP056B/50m...inter_Pen.html


AA build

http://www.focalprice.com/LP115B/50m...ter_Black.html




I recommend this out of all of them. It has a higher quality, and usually outputs more than 50mW.

http://ledshoppe.com/Product/ledp/LP1076.htm





Also, If you really want a violet laser, be aware that they are SIGNIFICANTLY dimmer than a green laser. My 100mW violet laser is not as bright as my 5mW green laser.

[bshanahan14rulz]

I had good experience at o-like
Sure, the green wasn't the best, but the 10mW blu-ray, z0mg. Plus, a lot of safety glasses that protect from green also protect from blu-ray, just by chance.

My purchases were a green 30mW; not a great choice, haven't been able to try it with better alkalines, but doesn't work with cheap "bulletline" AAA's, nor w/ eneloops, not enough voltage. Works great with a single li-ion, though! so bright! And the beam is the prettiest beam I've seen from a laser! beam is probably about 2mm thick, and as far as I can tell with my crappy eyes, very little divergence.
Final verdict: this thing sucks on alkalines and eneloops, but on a li-ion, it is awesome! Just doesn't work in the cold (typical of greenies) and I don't know how long it would last on li-ion. Don't know if I should recommend something that doesn't work as it is intended, but it was cheap, that's always a plus Also, doubt that it includes an IR filter.

also bought a 10mW focusable blu-ray. Out of the box it must have been way over spec, because it smokes leather and black plastic. I pot-modded it (I think I did... I was poking at that VR for so long and couldn't even get it to budge, so I gave up. Then realized that it can now ignite black matches and roll caps. Not to mention instead of just coercing little poofs of smoke out of my wallet, I can actually write on it!
Final verdict: heck, it's probably the same thing as the 30mW and 50mW versions they offer, just cheaper and with the VR at a different setting... Works great on AAA alkalines, works great (possibly better) on eneloops, blu-ray driver is the same as what they sell individually. If you want a blu-ray, get this. It's focusable in and out, so you can also use it as a flashlight to find stuff that fluoresces in 405nm (postage ink, highlighters, whatever glows in blacklights, peanut butter, fluorescent tubes, etc.)