Leadlight 105 from Vital*Spirit still has APC

[Nisei]

I recently bought a Leadlight GLP-105 (or at least that's what it says on eBay) from Vital*Spirit. I can now confirm that their units still have APC and are therefor not easy to mod. When I popped off the button the first thing I saw was a red wire so I new immediately that it was not pot moddable. I tried the pot method measuring 10uA unmodded and around 17-18 modded (with green LED). Hardly the result I was hoping to get from a 105 unit.
Now does anyone know, before I start tearing the thing apart, if this mod from Corona (scroll a few posts down) will also work for the APC equiped 105? And what's up with this? Do all 105 units have APC nowadays or should I contact them and ask them to get me a real 105?

 

[dr_lava]

vital*spirit has been selling 110's as 105's now for a long time. I'm dissappointed, this doesn't seem ethical after this long, the difference is well known.

Yes, that mod is THE mod for the 110, unless you wasnt to turn it onto a 105, then scroll down to see my 'constant current mod'

 

[Hemlock Mike]

110's can be turned up with the addition of a couple resistors around the pot. It will still have APC (which I think is good) but the power range is higher. Remember that as the current goes over about 300 mA, you are in a risk area for the pump diode.
Read all posts on modding and decide.

Mike

 

[dr_lava]

The problem with keeping APC in a pot modded 110 is that the current increases by itself as the laser warms up in order to keep the light output constant. This can lead to a damaged diode. So, proper tuning is important. If you can monitor the current, after your adjustment, watch it ramp up and make sure it stays in a safe limit.

 

[Hemlock Mike]

Dr_Lava is right ---- I forgot about the one that tried to put out "set" power when cold. It tried too hard and suffered a diode attack. Too much Lithium

Good Advise --

Mike

 

[Nisei]

I sent them an e-mail yesterday about the unit not being a GLP-105 and telling them a lot of people would be disappointed with the unit not being moddable. My e-mail was very polite and I didn't mention the GLP-110 ONCE, only that the unit I received has APC which the GLP-105 shouldn't have.
Guess what they replied?
Sorry, we didn't know it was the GLP-110, we ordered the GLP-105!
Well since there are posts on this forum about this subject dating more than 6 months ago I can hardly believe I'm the first one to mention this to them. And besides that, THEY start saying it's a GLP-110 but still they keep selling these units as GLP-105 on eBay.

 

[badhorsey]

Woah woah woah...

before this sinks into cheers & jeers territory, let me add my tuppenceworth.

I've been ordering large quantities of 105s from VitalSpirit for nearly two years now. The last batches however, have been different.

First off, they are NOT 110s - there is no power LED on the unit. However, they are different; the aperture is slightly smaller, there is a protective sticky over the aperture and they do indeed appear to be APC enabled (the pot is in a slightly different position and there is a telltale red cable).

Now, in defence of VS - I've had excellent service from them in all the time I dealt with them. And it's easy to forget that by tinkering with the innards, you're voiding the warranty.

So what they are selling is a 5mw laser pointer - not a "moddable 5mw laser pointer". Bear this in mind!

It seems to me that Leadlight started slipping APC into the 105s - hardly VitalSpirit's fault.

But indeed a sad day for modders everywhere.

 

[Nisei]

Hold on, there's been posts on this forum about this for over 6 months now. Wouldn't it be coincidence if VS is the only seller who sells those units? If indeed LeadLight had decided to put apc in the GLP-105 months ago then Atlasnova would sell those units as well wouldn't they? And since it's been more many months now I think their answer "Sorry we didn't know they were GLP-110" seems a very strange to me. I can't imagine I'm the first one to notice this and contact them about it so they must have known all along.

[edit]Another thing I noticed is that on their own site vitalspirit.com they don't mention the GLP-105, just a 5mW Leadlight. On eBay however, they still keep selling it as the GLP-105.
Maybe I'm wrong but I do think that they must've known about all this.
If from now on every new 105 from other sellers also have apc I will of course take back what I've said but that still has to happen.

There's a simple solution though. I'm going to mail Leadlight and ask them if the 105 has apc. If the answer is no then we all know for sure.[/edit]

 

[532nm]

Why would Leadlight spend the money to design and add an APC circuit if it wasn't a really good idea?
Does it exist only to keep the pointer more consistantly at the class IIIa limit ("<5mW")? Or does it help increase the life of the pointer overall regardless of the output power?

Does anyone have an explanation of the components on the driver board (yes I have seen the schematic in the other thread) which states what the prupose of each component is? Until the driver is understood more, it seems like people keep randomly turning pots and shorting components... and killing pointers.

 

[dr_lava]

Yes the APC IS a way to tune the laser to exactly 5mW all the time for a steady output. That's why they did it.

It's just not a really good idea to push it too far in the way mentioned above.
There's no randomness about the mod corona posted, other people shorting the capacitor A06 or whatever it is are just foolish IMO, that is not the accepted mod.

 

[SenKat]

Vital Spirit may well be the only one selling these units now, as I emailed Leadlight to get a quote of purchasing 1000 units, and the price was $42.00 EACH ! so - unless there are some folks out there buying them WAY cheaper somehow, they might be selling different units now - or selling off all their old stock, or something....dunno for sure.

 

[dr_lava]

long-time sellers who move high volume (1000's/month) can negotiate better prices on the lasers. Leadlights via this discount are probably more around $35 each

 

[532nm]

Yes the APC IS a way to tune the laser to exactly 5mW all the time for a steady output. That's why they did it.

It's just not a really good idea to push it too far in the way mentioned above.
There's no randomness about the mod corona posted, other people shorting the capacitor A06 or whatever it is are just foolish IMO, that is not the accepted mod.

I was a little confused about what the Corona mod entails. His post says to short out the yellow bar. It was carefully worded to suggest that the mod is only for " if you want to get a little more battery life out of your pointer, or use rechargables". I guess aside from shorting Q2, the actual mod involves turning up the pot up until you're reading about 350mA of current draw off the batteries.

Also it only seems to apply to a specific revision of the board which not everybody has.

 

[Nisei]

The pcb I have is exactly the same as the one Corona posted. I will post some pics tomorrow (damn camera battery is empty and recharging at the moment).
I must say it was really hard to take the unit apart but that could just be the unit I have.
I also got a reply from Leadlight; the lady was surprised I mentioned the GLP-105 because they stopped using that model # over 2 years ago. As you can see on their website they offer 4 series of pointers which look exactly alike: 1mW, 5mW, 15mW and 30mW.
She asked me to send me the serial # of my pointer so she could determine which model I have. I will talk to her later and ask if there's still any models without apc being manufatured. I'm beginning to wonder now where the non-apc models are coming from. Can anyone who recently bought one without apc (from Atlasnova perhaps?) please let me know the production year on the label?
Anyway, I'm going for the Corona/dr_lava mod and I figured I can do it with only 1 solder point on the pcb so that would probably make it quite an easy mod to do.

 

[532nm]

I think the 105s were probably originally purchased a while ago as you allude to.
The CPF special (Atlas Nova) I just bought was manufactured in 2004.

The problem with the APC Leadlights doesn't seem to be so much that you have to do extra work on the PCB, but rather that it's really hard to take the dang thing apart.

Is there any way to perform a mod on the APC Leadlights through the button hole?

 

[Nisei]

Nope, not if you really want more power.
I managed to roughly double the output by tuning the pot but the output was only around 3.5 mW to start with so I guess it's around 7 mW now.
If you really want to maximize the thing you have to take it apart.

 

[Nisei]

Here's some pics I promised to post.
I figured a standard (not smd) resistor would just fit in there, probably making the mod a bit easier to do for less experienced people. Don't try if you just bought your first soldering iron though.
A big thank you goes to dr_lava who really helped me out and answered all my stupid questions.

PCB of the unmodded Leadlight. Notice the led which is there and working but you can't see it when the unit is assembled.

Another one of the unmodded unit showing the APC.

The angled mirror which catches part of the beam and reflects it onto the sensor.

The APC removed.

The PCB after the mod. Note that the red wire and resistor top right are not connected to the switch, just to eachother.

Actual size (at 96dpi) of the PCB.

The black plastic piece put in place again.

I used the green LED method to measure output before and after the mod. Before the mod I measured 10uA (3.5mW) and after tuning the pot before I started modding I measured 20uA (7mW). After I finished modding I measured around 65uA which would be around 23mW. It's fixed at 350mA at the moment and very stable so maybe I try 400 - 450mA sometime soon. It's great I can use NiMh batteries now and always have the same current draw.

 

[Nisei]

No-one seems to be interested but I should post it in this topic anyway.
I received a reply from LeadLight saying that customers have 2 options when ordering laser pointers from them: APC or ACC.
APC is Automatic Power Control which keeps the power level at a fixed value. This is not good for people who want to mod their lasers because tuning the pot won't have much effect on the output power.
ACC is Automatic Current Control which is very nice because you can tune the pot and turn up the power while the ACC keeps the current draw at a fixed level. This is the same as what the dr_lava mod does and requires careful monitoring of the current draw when tuning.
She told me their advice to customers is APC because it gives stable power so when a seller doesn't know what they're talking about chances are that they follow their advice and choose the APC model.

So this is what it all comes down to:
The names GLP-105 or GLP-110 don't exist anymore and shouldn't be used when talking about the new pointers.
When ordering a new Leadlight be sure what you get: APC or ACC (but some sellers probably wouldn't know what you're talking about)
Hope this clears things up for now.

Here's a link to some interesting reading on the matter:
http://optima-prec.com/notes.htm

 

[dr_lava]

Thanks for the info and nice job on the mod!

 

[532nm]

Thanks for a great mini tutorial on the mod, maybe it should be made a sticky.

However I think your second post might be more important than people realize.
The e-bay sellers are probably all getting APC lasers, where what we really want is the ACC models.

Group buy time?