What is a "fake" laser?

[photonxiii]

I apologize for my last rant...but it's funny how some people can say something is "fake" without any knowledge of what is the real thing.

So to that end I hope someone can answer these few simple questions to clarify how a laser would be branded as a fake.

Who manufactures these "original" lasers that are being copied?
If there is a copy then there must be an original. So who manufactures these "original" lasers that all other brands are being compared against?

It is probably safe to assume that there is more than one reputable laser manufacturer in China. Could it be that these lasers that are being sold online all come from the same set of manufacturers?

How to tell if it's a "fake" laser?
If there are such lasers in existence in the market, how would a buyer be able to tell? What are the steps involved?

Like I said before, to me this whole "fake" lasers thing is more of a marketing gimmick than anything else and nothing more. The 200mW skybolt I bought from techlasers is definitely not fake.

 

[nero_design]

I was sent two laser from TL to test and review. I think they're nicely made actually. If they're 'clones' or so called 'fakes', they must have cost someone a lot of money in machining cases, high-end diodes, optics and parts as well as different wavelengths. Even in low-cost China.

CNI have ignored my legitimate inquiries for the purpose of my reviews, even after applying with my business registration number and personal details to identify me as a third-party. Makes me think they don't want to talk about it. I wlways thought an 'exclusive' meant "pre-sales scoop". It strikes me as a bad business decision to only sell through one dealer when you make a commercial item. But with respect to dealers, that may be an agreement they reached with CNI. I have no idea. Perhaps the language barrier (which I have experienced when communicating with CNI years ago) contributed to a misunderstanding between them all some time ago?

So far, the samples I'm working with are well made and perform as expected. Reports from other owners are likewise positive. Let's see how this pans out.

 

[jhosaki]

The exclusivity that Laserglow maintains with the Hercules series (manufactured by CNI) is not just a "pre-sales scoop" as you say. The Hercules series was developed by Laserglow in partnership with CNI at great expense and the original development agreement stated that the Hercules would be manufactured exclusively for Laserglow. This was not an existing product that we "snatched up", the Hercules was MADE by Laserglow through CNI. They did not produce a handheld laser of this power before we contracted them to produce the Hercules for us.

This is why we are the only worldwide distributor of legitimate Hercules lasers and all others should be considered knock-offs. If you want to risk thousands of dollars on a knock-off be my guest, but don't expect the same level of performance that you have heard about from real Hercules owners!

 

[Timelord]

Well said Justin :twothumbs

 

[swordfish]

Our "laser hobby" is still relatively new. Things change...more and more powerful lasers are coming out and so are new manufacturers. These lasers were unhreard of just a few years ago, it's going to be quite interesting when other manufacturers step in with more cool ideas and designs. To quickly dismiss the newcomers coming into this emerging market of commercial lasers would be a mistake.

As for telling which is which with genuine lasers and clones, it shouldn't be that hard becuase in the case of moldings, only the manufacturers will have those. To be able to accurately duplicate it together with the materials and finishing would be a rather daunting task. The only other explanation would be that either the components and parts were made by a common supplier or these "clones" are not really "clones", but rather made by the same manufacturer which explains why the units are identical.

As for contracts and whatnot, in business you generally do not let yourself get backed into a corner. Especially if its a commercial product, to agree sell it to just one dealer would be a mistake when there is clearly a demand for it in the market.

 

[jhosaki]

In China, duplicating something is hardly daunting. You just send an "original" product to a Chinese factory and say "make this", and they make it. Usually they make it cheaply, but copying other people's designs is a whole industrial sector in China and the government, while officially opposed to intellectual property infringement, can do little to stop it.

And once again, this is not a case where the manufacturer has agreed to sell a product only to a specific dealer, the Hercules is a product which was developed by Laserglow. They manufacture it for us in the same way that factories in Asia make shoes for Nike. It's not a matter of the factory being backed into a corner and "selling" shoes to Nike exclusively, they are Nike's shoes and the factory produces them under contract.

 

[lazerlover]

Thanks for clarifying Justin. Does this mean that any laser company that tells CNI about what they want, CNI will make? For example Laserglow told CNI that they wanted a high powered laser more powerful than anything else in the market, and CNI made it, its just really really big. What if another company told CNI to make a high powered white laser that combined all 3 wavelengths, how long would it be for them to make it, and what would be minimum quantity?

 

[ah-see]

Thanks for clarifying Justin. Does this mean that any laser company that tells CNI about what they want, CNI will make? For example Laserglow told CNI that they wanted a high powered laser more powerful than anything else in the market, and CNI made it, its just really really big. What if another company told CNI to make a high powered white laser that combined all 3 wavelengths, how long would it be for them to make it, and what would be minimum quantity?

lazerlover i think you missed this piece of information.

.....the Hercules is a product which was developed by Laserglow.

 

[Aseras]

any company will make whatever you want if you supply the development cash.

 

[jhosaki]

If you want to pony up the cash and spend months developing a working, quality product then be my guest. It's not as easy as saying "make me this", because if it was that simple they would have done it already. You actually have to develop the product, and working with companies from China can be challenging at times.

As for MOQ and whatnot, you'll have to contact CNI for that kind of information.

 

[swordfish]

Hello Justin, since you said your company developed the hercules laser does that mean your company was also responsible for the overall design for the casing and internals? Just wondering...

 

[photonxiii]

I suppose that if you were a company with enough resources, you can contact them and ask them if they can assemble a laser based on your specifications. But that seems more like the laser was "made to order" than anything else...

 

[lazerlover]

I'm pretty sure that they are not "made to order". I mean Laserglow has ads in Popular Science, they are a multi million dollar company. For sure, they have some of the best trained optoelectric technicians in Canada working for them around the clock. Laserglow has more than just green lasers, they have yellow, red, blue, etc. For them to be able to design all those lasers the amount of PHDs they have must be almost as much Wicked Lasers needs to make their own products. I mean, if its just made to order, anyone in reading this can just copy their business model and offer everything Laserglow had to offer in just one second, do you really think thats possible?

 

[Bryce]

My friend has recently gotten a Tech Laser for his hobby use. Haven't heard any complaints from him yet. I suppose a fake laser would really be a laser that doesn't actually lase.That would best be called a "dud".

 

[sharkeeper]

The term "fake laser" is conjured by the so called "exclusive" companies (that resell products) that are afraid of competition. That is all. Competition is good for the end user.

Cheers!

 

[allthatwhichis]

I think a fake laser is like a fake pair of Oakleys. Remember when the "blades" and "razor blade" "models" were popular in the late 80s and 90s? You could buy all the parts to build a pair except for the top bride piece that held everyting together, it held the lense and ear pieces and was the only part to have a patent # on it. You had to buy a full pair to get the bridge. We called them Foakleys, but you really couldn't tell the difference unless you looked under the bridge where the earpiece connected to the bridge right next to where the lense popped in. You could also buy a pair of the Foakleys with no Oakley parts, but at that time, I was 12 to 16, I wouldn't have worn anything 100% fake... The glasses are real sunglasses, they protect your eyes... But they weren't real Oakleys. They had all the Oakley parts except that one piece, that you had to look REAL close to notice.

I think what you are calling a "fake laser" is of course a real laser, it produces a coherent line of photons. It is just a facsimile of a "licenced" product paid for by the licenser to the licensee to make them "exclusively". Probably the wrong term, but makes sense to me. Who ever designed the laser, like Oakley with their glasses, licensed someone to use their design to manufacture the laser for them. The fake laser is like the pair of Foakleys. Probably made from the same materials, but without the license and name, maybe even made in the same building.

I'm sure Oakley probably made their products back then, if not they probably paid or licensed a manufacture to make their product and they probably do that today. Say the same thing happends, the licesned company who make the sunglasses make a batch, or tells the company next door that makes similar items hey make a batch of sunglasses like this design, doesn't stamp the patent # or put the "Brand name" on them and sells them to a company that didn't design or license the manufaturing of the glasses. This company sells them cheaper with no name brand on them, casue they can't or will get sued, or with a name of their own. These may be just as good, or better at what they are supposed to do, but to most of us consumers, they are not "real" cause they are not branded by the company who designed and licensed the product. The designers and licenser of the sunglasses is going to call these "fake" because they are almost identical to the design they designed and paid for to be made "exclusively" for them, but were sold to someone else for less $, cause they don't have to meet the specs (even if they do), or be tested to spec, therefore cutting into the licenser's profit margin, or better said, taking food off their table.

Now sunglasses and lasers are apples and oranges, and to be honest, if I buy a green laser, it has an IR filter, beam specs and all are comparable, I don't care what brand is on it, whether it be "fake" or not if the price is good. I'm not going to wear a pair of Foakleys. But to me it is a very similar situation and what you need to think about is the service you will get after. Will your Foakley manufacture honor a warrenty claim or have a warrenty? Oakley will, but I doubt you will even find the manufacture of the Foakleys, and for $15 who cares? But for a $400 laser... From what I have seen, the "real" laser's licenser is a very respectable company and will bend over backward to help with any problems even after a laser has been "resold". I haven't heard of anything about the "fake" laser company so I have nothing to go on. The real culprit here is the manufacturing company who is selling the unlicensed product to the reseller here. They make money from the licenser to make the exclusive product and then sell the designs to another manufacture to make the unbranded product or even make it them selves to sell to another company that didn't design the product or license the manufacturing. They basically get paid twice, once for the licensed product and again to give that design to someone else unlicensed...

Hmmm, did that make sense? Been a long Monday after a unrestful weekend. :tinfoil:

My point is, the "fake" laser is considered "fake" to the designer becasuse it is basically thier design that is being sold by another company who didn't spend the time and $ on the R&D for it and are making $ from someone else's work. It is fake to some people/consumers who respect and value the patenting system and wouldn't want this situation to happend to them if they designed and paid to have something made for them to sell to others. BUT it is STILL a device that makes a coherent line of photons, is probably made from the same or comparable parts, and meets similar specs as the licensed, "real" laser, making it a "real laser" in my book.

I'd still buy from Justin though.

And I'd probaly call it a "fake" laser too if it was my design but not putting food on my table as it should be doing, or putting some of the food that belongs on my table on someone elses table unless I choose for it to be putting food there. It is not a marketing gimmik, it is capitolism, for god or ill, it is what we got.

 

[photonxiii]

I guess if there is a problem, it comes from the fact that for a multi-million dollar company...they don't manufacture the lasers themselves. They only contacted a company to make a laser for them based on their specifications. It just would really be more interesting to know who really makes these lasers...to actually name a few more manufacturers other than CNI.

The weird thing is how many online resellers out there actually put the name of their supplier on their site?

 

[jhosaki]

Determining who "really" manufactures a technically complicated device like a laser is actually much more ambiguous than determining the manufacturer of something simple like a t-shirt. A company that makes a t-shirt takes cotton (raw material) and weaves it into fabric which is sewn into a shirt. That company "made" the shirt, simple.

With complex devices like lasers or cars, for example, you can say that Honda made your Civic, but what does that really mean? Honda didn't forge the chassis, a steel plant (maybe Magna?) did that. Honda didn't make the tires, radio, paint, electrical system, upholstery, etc. What they DID was design the car, determine the acceptable specifications for all of those components, source quality components from reliable manufacturers, and assemble and QC test the final device (aka your 2007 Honda Civic). They also provide aftermarket support for the device which they designed and sold.

This is similar to the process which Laserglow takes to produce our Hercules series. Obviously, we don't make the laser diodes, we use nLight or Osram diodes made in the States. The housings are machined at a machine shop and the electrical components are printed and assembled at another location. All these components are brought together as per our exacting specifications and assembled into the final device which we then test, grade, market, sell and support. Manufacturing complex technical components is expensive and you need to take advantage of economies of scale on the manufacturing side to keep the price of the device affordable. It's better (aka more affordable) to have a company dedicated to just making diodes and another facility dedicated to housings, etc, rather than trying to run a small-scale crystal growth lab and a machine shop and an optics lab just to make a few thousand handheld lasers. We could produce the whole device in Canada from scratch, but the price would be obscene and the manufacturing market in China would just copy our designs and produce them cheaper anyways, using the aforementioned economies of scale.

The post about the fake Oakleys is a pretty good example of what we mean by a "fake" or counterfeit laser. It's something that was not produced by the original licensor or designer, and you have no guarantee that the quality and reputation that you're used to will be reflected in the knock-off device. Oakleys have a lifetime warranty, for example, wheras Foakleys may just fall off of your face and you're stuck with them. For a $15 pair of knock-off glasses or jeans this may not be too concerning, but when the knock-off device is $500-1000 you may want to consider that you usually get what you pay for and you may be stuck with something that doesn't perform the way you expected.

 

[LiteTheWay]

All good points Justin and I think your analogy with the Honda car and complex items makes it all pretty clear.

So why not at least put a "Hercules" sticker on your lasers. I saw one such on your website but that may have just been a Photoshopped job of course with no actual physical label.

IF YOU DO START PUTTING LABELS ON YOUR LASERS - CAN I HAVE ONE FOR MY HERCULES-275 PLEASE?

Very satisfied with the service from yourself and Paul recently, by the way.

Chris

 

[photonxiii]

All good points, I agree...but the main difference between them and companies like oakley or honda is that the latter companies own copyrights and patents for their products. These lasers are on a more "generic" level compared to the two "branded" examples. The other thing is that did laserglow develop some new technology that they applied to their hercules laser?

If not and all they've got going is the generic laser parts assembled to their specifications/design that any other capable company can also design and assemble, then branding would be the only viable option but it would be a little difficult because all these lasers are identical, in parts and housing, not because they were copied, but because the housings and parts all coming from the same set of suppliers.

The point I'm trying to make is that these lasers all have a manufacturer behind them. A good example would be CNI lasers whose products are being sold under different names such as the "x-series" from novalasers, "vipers" at dragonslasers and last but not least, "infiniti" at techlasers. 3 companies selling the same laser.

People are starting to move on to the bigger more powerful handheld lasers…so now that there's a demand, manufacturers are stepping up, so who's to say the companies already making them are not the ones answering this increase in demand? :wave: