Are the arctic III lasers any good?

I guess this is a late post, I never thought to check here first..... I did purchase a 1w (1000mw) Arctic blue hand held laser and it has been interesting.

Was it worth the money? not sure, are there better blue lasers at the price point I paid for that one?

werearemyleds said:

I guess this is a late post, I never thought to check here first..... I did purchase a 1w (1000mw) Arctic blue hand held laser and it has been interesting.

Was it worth the money? not sure, are there better blue lasers at the price point I paid for that one?

Click to expand...

Yes (If you enjoy it $2-300 worth) and yes. LaserPointerForums specializes in the lasers, they have a love/hate relationship with the Arctic Blue III. I hope you're wearing your safety goggles with it!

werearemyleds said:

I guess this is a late post, I never thought to check here first..... I did purchase a 1w (1000mw) Arctic blue hand held laser and it has been interesting.

Was it worth the money? not sure, are there better blue lasers at the price point I paid for that one?

Click to expand...

I did not pay that much for mine. Well below retail. For what I have into it, yes. For $300? I'd say it depends. There are many modes. I prefer the low power mode. I also bought a Krypton 300mW. I just wanted one of each.

I made a 445nm drop-in for my solarforce L2 for about $90. The heatsink was custom turned, and had a few extra features, so it was a bit on the pricy side, but worth it Just so that you get an idea of the prices, the bare diode itself generally retails for $40-45.

Goggles are a must for these extremely powerful diodes.

I have an Arctic 3 and it's a great laser for something "off the shelf". The way it was machined and the general look is pretty cool however after visiting the laser forum it's pretty much considered just a moderate to mediocre laser. With that being said...whenever I take it out camping or outdoors people are usually awestruck being able to see the laser, beam and all. If you do decide to get one of these lasers or any lasers for that matter you definitely need to be very careful and even more careful not to point it at any aircraft. The FAA does not take this lightly and the fines/jail time you could face are pretty heavy.

There's an LPF sales thread for a few green Kryptons

I bought my blue 1w laser from dragonlasers. Price was considerable lower than @ wl. Quality is good, but only 1 mode: full force.

I've been happy with mine so far. That said, if ordering, I'd still be concerned about whether or not I'll ever receive the laser. After the fiascoes with long waits, customs confiscations, no replies from WL, etc, I'm wary of buying from WL. Comments on their facebook page seems to be a good way to measure current customer service and satisfaction.

In a word, NO. I have several 2.5W+ Customs from LPF members and they all cost under $300.. One of them well under $300.. So again, no. WL is for people that get sucked in by their marketing. And most of the time their "claimed" output is usually way underspec.. I have heard of 1.4W WL Spider III Arctic's metering at under 700mW... Absolutely shocking!