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Clueless, violet gift for my father.

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Inthetower85

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Honestly I’m not really one for forums, but this I know nothing about. My father’s birthday is coming up towards the end of this month, and I’m wondering what some good purple/violet options are for distance and/or burning. Not necessarily together, but that’d be great. Durable and somewhat pocket sized would also be nifty, as he would probably take it camping and on trails. Purple is his favorite color, please help? Price around 200-400... don’t want something to blow up on him, ya know?
 





Welcome to the forum.
You can't go wrong with Sanwu, they offer pocket lasers.
They have a 200mW 405nm for $90 or 500mW for $120.
If you need a bit more then you can look at the guardian series where you can get 1.4W 405nm for $230.

www.sanwulasers.com

Pocket series

The Pocket series offers the world's smallest handheld laser devices, featuring near 1W 445nm, exotic wavelengths, 488nm cyan laser, 593.5nm golden laser, and 561nm yellow laser. These compact lasers are designed for precision and portability, making them ideal for a wide range of applications...
www.sanwulasers.com www.sanwulasers.com
 
Like Curtis said, check out Sanwu "Pocket" series. They are beautifully crafted, reasonably priced, and from a reputable company. Don't fall for the online advertisers claims of high power lasers for $20 bucks. Most of those ads are from scam websites that sell you crap. Make sure to check out the "Companies" part of the forum to see which laser companies to REALLY avoid, if for some reason you don't find Sanwu lasers appealing.
 
Since these are all 405nm wavelength lasers, which is barely visible to our eyes because it is so close to UV, you might want to consider a combination of red and blue lasers to make purple. Much more visible, but will likely need to be made for you as I don't know of any company offering one in a pointer.
 
Is your father laser savvy and does he understand laser safety ?

I can't recommend any laser over 5mw as a gift unless the recipient is laser savvy and I would not have something made over 5mw either, not something potentially dangerous especially in 405nm which is probably the worst wavelength to give as a gift to a novice if that's the case.

I would give a 5mw 532nm pointer and if that peaks interest then in time maybe have something made, however if your father is not new to lasers and you are willing to spend 400 dollars then maybe think about the Sanwu RGB, I know it's twice what you were thinking of spending but WOW what a great gift for a laser hobbyist.
 
The Sanwu RGB hand held is $400 more at $780 than you wanted to spend but would be an awesome gift allowing any color mix .

I agree with Paul above ---532nm green is much better than a 405nm violet which is only 1% as bright as 532nm green and much more dangerous + 405nm is very difficult for most people to focus vision on clearly as it is close to the edge of the visible spectrum.
A 445nm blue is closer to violet than blue/blue and very affordable---probably would go over well.

JetLasers and Sanwu are the best quality available and anything from either would make a very nice gift.

Have a look around both sites. https://www.jetlasers.org/index.php and https://www.sanwulasers.com/
 
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Inthetower85 said:
Honestly I’m not really one for forums, but this I know nothing about. My father’s birthday is coming up towards the end of this month, and I’m wondering what some good purple/violet options are for distance and/or burning. Not necessarily together, but that’d be great. Durable and somewhat pocket sized would also be nifty, as he would probably take it camping and on trails. Purple is his favorite color, please help? Price around 200-400... don’t want something to blow up on him, ya know?
Click to expand...
Psst. Violet is not purple.
 
Encap said:
Exactly--Purple is a mixed color. It consists of a mixture of the spectral color red and the spectral color blue.
Click to expand...
Can you give me a estimate in WL numbers of the color purple and violet? I'm curious..
 
Purple is a word used to describe a secondary color made by combining red and blue therefore purple is not used on the visible electromagnetic spectrum which is from 380nm to 720nm but violet that we normally encounter is around 405nm - 415nm or there about, actually violet is defined as the color between blue and invisible UV and covers 380-450nm as far as the visible hue, yes I know 450 looks blue but put a 450nm beam next to a 475nm beam and the 450 looks violet again, it's how our brain processes the information from our eyes but the technical definition on Wikipedia for violet says 380-450nm.

If our eyes see 410nm light our brain perceives it as violet and if our brain sees a mixture of 650nm light and 460nm light then our brain perceives it as purple, both violet and purple can appear the same but they're actually not, it's like those red automotive tail lights with the little blue crystal in the middle, from behind the red and blue light hits our eye together and we see perceive purple but standing next to it you see the red and blue.

In short purple is an optical illusion where we see violet when it's really red and blue hitting out eye together and that illusion is named purple.
 
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What never made sense to me is why violet is presented as the color purple.
For example.
 

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Alright, aside from the color jabs, he does have experience with lasers, but how much I have no clue. If the laser presents more along the lines of VIOLET (🙄haha) I am open to suggestions... I checked out the sanwu lasers but they kind of look like the stubby ones you get at the dollar store, not to knock them. I was looking for something a little bigger... if you guys want to school me about lasers I’m all game to know what I’m buying for him, but it’d be rad to keep under 400 please hah. Thank you all so far for suggestions and recommendations thus far!
 
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