medical (I guess it’s in the range for tattoo removal, but power rating for these lasers are stated weirdly)
fiber optic communications
Tasks 1w lasers are unsuitable for
any kind of pointing, besides cases where you wish to permanently damage your audience.
As I recall the cheap lasers have an issue with the quality of their wavelength. Both in contamination and precision. Which leads glasses not being effective.
lots of these are pulsed, primarily to avoid excessive local heating (burning) of the tissue being lased. these can have peak powers in the kilowatt range!
I just wrote “weird” because trying to explain 250mJ delivered in 15ns became too much math to put into a comment I wanted people to read.
also your point of output contamination is spot on! +1 to avoiding cheap “powerful” lasers :)
That’s what fucking around finds out for you. Luckily I never got to the stage in my project where I put on my budget non-certified goggles, and powered on el cheapo laser diode. But if I can help somebody else to not trust the nominal values, then I’ll chime in when this is brought up.
Honestly, I’ve got no idea what price range is plausible these days. What I do know is, that I would only buy from someone who knows what they’re doing, and who can provide a proper datasheet. But then again I come at this from an electronics angle, so I’d want a datasheet with stats on the beam, like wavelength composition, and heat dissipation etc, and not just forward voltage and current.
If you’re looking to buy a finished product, then figure out what regulatory markings it should have, like UL, CSA, CE, and TÜV. Personally I may be European, but I wouldn’t be satisfied with a CE marking, it must at least have TÜV before I’d mess with it, and I’d prefer it to be UL listed as well. Anybody can slap CE on a product, but UL and TÜV are actual testing institutions.
Suitable applications of 1w lasers
Tasks 1w lasers are unsuitable for
As I recall the cheap lasers have an issue with the quality of their wavelength. Both in contamination and precision. Which leads glasses not being effective.
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I just wrote “weird” because trying to explain 250mJ delivered in 15ns became too much math to put into a comment I wanted people to read.
That’s what fucking around finds out for you. Luckily I never got to the stage in my project where I put on my budget non-certified goggles, and powered on el cheapo laser diode. But if I can help somebody else to not trust the nominal values, then I’ll chime in when this is brought up.
Any idea where the quality is appropriate for the task? Like a $300 range or like a $2k range?
Honestly, I’ve got no idea what price range is plausible these days. What I do know is, that I would only buy from someone who knows what they’re doing, and who can provide a proper datasheet. But then again I come at this from an electronics angle, so I’d want a datasheet with stats on the beam, like wavelength composition, and heat dissipation etc, and not just forward voltage and current.
If you’re looking to buy a finished product, then figure out what regulatory markings it should have, like UL, CSA, CE, and TÜV. Personally I may be European, but I wouldn’t be satisfied with a CE marking, it must at least have TÜV before I’d mess with it, and I’d prefer it to be UL listed as well. Anybody can slap CE on a product, but UL and TÜV are actual testing institutions.