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Cuddly Ninja

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Hello, First post. I'm a noob with lasers, I brought myself a 200mW red laser and I want better. A few questions.

Can some one explain the differnces between Red, Green, Blue? Like what do they shine at (Distence etc.)?

Can a laser pen realy go 60miles? I want to buy a spyder 3 1W laser and it only says 6km where as other green lasers say 60-150miles

Finaly, Should I buy the spyder 3 blue 1W laser? What is its downside? Dose it have good range?

Thanks, Ninja
 





Welcome to LPF! Do not buy a Spyder 3! If you want a 1w blue you should consider building one yourself or buying a custom built here on the forum. If you order a spyder 3 the chances are you will never receive it, due to the FDA or Customs confiscating them. WL quality control is also very poor, they have had a lot of problems. Do a search on the forum and you will find your answers.

A 1w 445nm is the most powerful colored laser in hand held, IR is acually the most powerful but it is very dangerous since you can't see it. If and when you do buy a laser make sure you have some good laser safety glasses before you use it.

Click on this http://laserpointerforums.com/f65/32-reasons-not-buy-wicked-lasers-arctic-s3-56289.html#post794342
 
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Greens go further cause they are DPSS lasers which have a better beam diamterer and lower divergence than multimode diodes like the 445nm Arctic. Theoretically the beam of a laser goes as far as there is no object stopping it. Practically it depends on factors like humidity and enviroment light. I would never exect to see a handheld laser at more than 10miles with my naked eye. I am planing a few distance shots in the near future.

The building here is about 1mile away
 
DJNY, is that photo one of yours? If so do you have some notes somewhere on how you took this, what laser etc.? That is an awesome shot.
 
pseudoephedrine said:
DJNY, is that photo one of yours? If so do you have some notes somewhere on how you took this, what laser etc.? That is an awesome shot.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I dont know the exposure time, it was an automatic function and he never read the manual. The laser is my ~220mW O-Like greenie.

They reduced its rice hard last week, from $166 to $123, here is the link
200mW transformable green laser/adjustable [OLV6200] - $122.99 : Welcome to O-Like.com, Your source for laser products
 
You would have had the laser on a tripod or something though? The exposure looks to be about 3 seconds from the traffic. SO the laser must have been super still. Good work.
 
Cuddly Ninja said:
Hello, First post. I'm a noob with lasers, I brought myself a 200mW red laser and I want better. A few questions.

Can some one explain the differnces between Red, Green, Blue? Like what do they shine at (Distence etc.)?

Can a laser pen realy go 60miles? I want to buy a spyder 3 1W laser and it only says 6km where as other green lasers say 60-150miles

Finaly, Should I buy the spyder 3 blue 1W laser? What is its downside? Dose it have good range?

Thanks, Ninja
Click to expand...

Well since your new some of these terms may confuse you, such as DPSS or multimode. DPSS is a system that is used in green lasers to make them green. They are actually an infrared laser thats passing through 2 crystals to turn it green. Multimode refers to the laser diodes that are being used by the high power blue (445nm) lasers, they are basically a bunch of diodes in one so you get a rectangular dot.

Differences in red, green blue

Red is typically 650nm, your eyes have roughly a 10% or so visibility response to this so they are a bit harder to see. Even the 200+mw ones dont have a very visible beam in normal conditions. A 200mw red beam can go far but they dont have the best divergence (how much the dot gets wider over a space)

Green is usually 532nm, your eyes have somewhere around a 90% visibility response so they are very visible. Lower power 10+mw will have some form of a visible beam at night. A 50mw green will be as bright if not brighter than a 200mw red. These usually have excellent divergence so longer distance pointing is quite good. People get in trouble for shooting airplanes with low powered ones for an example of how far it can go (dont shoot aircraft, its a felony)

Blue is used to refer to either the higher powered 445nm which is a true blue color these are 200-1,500mw, or the 405nm bluray violet lasers which are anywhere from 5mw to upwards of 7-800mw. The blue ones look cool but there is a special hazard with them called blue light hazard, they can mess up your eyes but thats with any laser over 5mw. 445s typically dont have the best divergence due to being multimode where the 405nm has fairly good divergence due to being a "normal" style laser diode.

I would strongly recommend starting out with a lower powered green (10-50mw) which if your not used to is still pretty cool to see. If your dead set on a high powered 445nm check out the for sale section of this forum, you can get em for around $180 or so. DO NOT BUY unless you get some safety goggles first, they can destroy your sight if you catch a reflection off many surfaces.
 
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DJNY...

That pic is beautiful, best thing I've seen all week. AWESOME!!!!
 
DJNY said:
Thanks. I dont know the exposure time, it was an automatic function and he never read the manual. The laser is my ~220mW O-Like greenie.

They reduced its rice hard last week, from $166 to $123, here is the link
200mW transformable green laser/adjustable [OLV6200] - $122.99 : Welcome to O-Like.com, Your source for laser products
Click to expand...

It was a 3 second exposure. Fstop was 3.3. ISO 80. ;)

Most cameras, even cheap ones, encode shot settings in the image.

And back OT.. Technically, longer wavelengths will travel farther in the atmosphere than shorter wavelengths. If you take a 405 of decent power outside in the dark and shine it up in the air while looking up along the beam you can actually visibly see it fan out due to Rayleigh scattering. So reds will travel farther, at least in the earth's atmosphere, than any other visible wavelength.
 
No, it would not. Green laser pointers are considered better not because the laser is better, but because of you eye. The human eye has a peak sensitivity at the green wavelength of light. So green light will look brighter to our eyes than an equal amount of red light. But it is more like a factor of 2 than a factor of 4, as you suggested. (That depends on the specific person's eyes, of course.) However, the 200mW red laser would still have 4 times the power of a 50mW green laser, so it would burn things, including your retina, 4 times faster. So if you mean stronger as in more power, then the mW rating is all that is important and the color is not. If you mean stronger as in more visible, then a green laser will be about twice as bright as an equally powerful red laser. But for the two lasers you suggest, the red laser is 'stronger' in both senses.
 
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