Any recommendation for a good laser pointer for recreational use? Something powerful enought to be fun.
Most of the ones I have seen on Amazon looks like $10 toys.
2 Thanks
The S3 Arctic looks good.
I personally use the chinese blue laser. Its very powerful for about $50. They are sold under many names, mainly a gatling stlye laser and one that looks like a clone of the wicked laser. Green lasers are more expensive but far brighter. The blue lasers are usually direct diode. Green is usually a weaker DPSS which is like the cheap cat toy you mentioned. These leak a lot of infrared light and wont function in the cold. Direct diode green is better.
TTC tested a few. Not eye safe be careful. A reflection in a mirror could ruin your day.
All the Best,
Jeff
2 Thanks
Yes, good point. Always be responsible with these things. Most of these will be way overpowered than the 5mw listing. Only to pass customs. Actual power is a few hunderd mw up to 1W. Seriously potential for eye injuries. Never direct at people, pets, and especially plane pilots and vehicle drivers. Even if its far away enough not to cause eye damage it can still distract them and cause an accident. (Also illegal in a lot of countries.) If you get laser, use it responsibly, and dont be a jerk and ruin it for everyone because these things are awesome.
4 Thanks
I got a JLasers 1.6W Blue laser for my last birthday⌠Itâs pretty nuts considering itâs in a 14500 host. Iâm deathly afraid to use it for anything other than pointing at stars though. Laser goggles are highly recommended.
His site is now offering a number of other builds using Convoy hosts so they can run continuously, but theyâre also a fair bit more expensive.
1 Thank
I had a laserglow Galileo once. The only reasonably priced laser that doesnât overheat too fast
1 Thank
Be careful with eBay lasers or AE lasers. These Chinese ones are often way over the 5mW limit for class II and class III which are the max for legal import. Theyâre often hundreds of times more powerful, some up to 3W. Some, especially the blue/purple can leak invisible near IR light thatâs very detrimental to your unprotected vision. Thereâs also incidental reflection (especially with green) off some surfaces that can damage your eyes without ever being âshinedâ directly. If youâve got to have a laser over 200mW, get some proper laser goggles. Your eyes will thank you.
3 Thanks
Itâs interesting to see Torque Test Channel branching out (including not just lasers, but flashlight tests, too).
It looks like he has a slightly older video testing Amazon laser pointers, showing that $15 buys a 3-pack of laser pointers advertised as toys that in reality can be as much as 16x the maximum output legally allowed to sold as a laser pointer in the US.
Considering Iâm used to flashlight manufacturers lying about outputs that are actually far less than claimed, Iâm a little surprised that for lasers it is the opposite, with manufacturers lying about outputs far higher than claimed.
I figured testing laser power would be relatively complex and require some sort of expensive meter, but I looked up the one TTC is using, and itâs just $140. Apparently at low to medium power levels, it is as simple as applying a coating that absorbs visible light with good consistency across different wavelengths to a thermopile (basically a thermoelectric cooler operating in reverse) mounted on a heatsink. The resulting temperature increase generates an electrical signal that can correlated to power. The manufacturer of this âLaserbeeâ meter says they calibrate theirs against a much more expensive, commercial grade laser meter.
It is somewhat slow (~30 seconds, hence the rising output graph in his video), and I suspect weâre not talking about single digit percentage accuracy, but I suspect more than adequate to compare relative safety.
So good on TTC for actually making an effort to reasonably test these potentially hazardous products.
With that said, the 3-pack of âMeusnoâ brand AAA-powered laser pointers that TTC tested is on sale for $10 right now. Reviewers confirm they are bright, but poor quality and likely to break. I was about to place an Amazon order anyways, so for a little over $3 each, I think I will give them a try, and make sure to keep the green and blue laser somewhere my kids canât get at them.
1 Thank
The JLasers shop looks like they have a pretty good lineup.
I actually found this thread because I identified a need at work for a laser pointer better than the weak button cell toy I have in a drawer at home. After some brief searching, I found the laser pointer world is filled with what appear to be the laser equivalents of Atomic Beam or the disposable Harbor Freight flashlights. But I want the laser equivalent of a Convoy T3: well made, usefully bright, but still easy on the wallet.
In fact, it occurred to me that a Convoy T3 body with a laser producing probably in the 10-100mW range would be exactly what I want. I actually started looking into possible sources for laser diodes and drivers that might be possible to adapt to a T3 body. That took me to LaserPointerForums, which looks useful, although thereâs more info there than I can sort through just yet.
So naturally I thought, âI bet some folks on BLF have already gone down the laser rabbit hole and can make some recommendations.â Iâm glad I looked.
I see JLasers has some very high powered lasers (up to 7W) based on the Convoy C8, M21A, and M21B bodies. Way overkill for me, but very cool (and dangerous) looking. And they have a 10440-powered model coming soon that looks like it might use a SF-348 body.
And they have a wide range of 14500-powered lasers based on the stainless steel version of the Ultrafire C3 body. Some even have multi-mode drivers. That is close to perfect. They arenât as cheap as a Convoy flashlight, but the pricing seems pretty good for a niche product. The main drawback I see is the 638 nm version, which is probably the color Iâd want to start with, is 700mW, which I suspect is quite a bit more powerful than I would want.
2 Thanks
So are any of those âgatling gunâ lasers consistently high-power?
I was looking for some ~1W lasers for an experiment, but the ones that are legit 1W-ish and advertised as such are usually obscenely expensive, and thatâs if they can be shipped.
So Iâm willing to gamble on cheep-cheep-cheep lasers if I got a chance of getting something fairly high-powered.
Most likely colors that fit the bill?
(Iâm okay with violet, blue, green, and IR. The last, even if I just take out the doubling crystal from a greenie.)
1 Thank
Only 450nm blue exceeds 1W. Its around 1600 mw. The other colors are much less. Green is only 80-100 mw of visible green light. About 150 mw of Ir leaks out. Red is around 200 mw but its not that impressive. Purple is about 300 but it looks very weak. Dont think IR exists. If you remove crystal from green laser, you loose the focusing lens which is incorporated in that assembly. You will make an IR flashlight with a very divergent beam.
EDIT this counts for not only gatling style lasers but all cheap chinese lasers in a big host eg. 18650,16340 or 26650. Depending on your choice of host, the blue 1w laser will be around $50-75 depending if you get only the laser or a kit with cheap chinese batteries and accessories
Get one of those convoy lasers. If you donât like it you can use it as a host for something else.
I canât believe those are actual convoy flashlight hosts they made into lasers. They even say convoy on them. Thatâs hilarious.
Yeah, my 900mW laser is blue, and wanted a little bit of an upgrade. Havenât really seen anything in similar wattage in other colors.
1 Thank
I got enough Convoy hosts in all the different colors that I could open Convoy America over here.
2 Thanks
Nice!
I donât have that many Convoy flashlights, but I do appreciate Convoy.
I prefer flashlights that are somewhat throwy, and Convoy offers plenty of great choices for what I like. 
Yeah, this was back when I think GB was selling for cheap the hosts-of-color in the nice gift-boxes and metal switch. About the same price of the filled-in lights, but theyâd come in the Cheap White Generic Cardboard Boxes, so kinda hard to gift. I was gonna go nuts and make bespoke lights (choice of emitter, driver, etc.), but still had too many left over.
That was way back when everything and its grandmother was the dreaded âXML-T6â. Just typing that actually physically pains me.
But there might be new colors
I canât personally vouch for JLasers, but in addition to laser pointers made from Convoy and Ultrafire bodies, he sells laser power meters. Hopefully the owner of that site is verifying his own products.
He has a Convoy M21B (21700 powered) version that he claims 5W from at 450nm (blue).
His Thorfire C3 based line are the ones that intrigue me the most. Theyâre not quite as powerful, but he has a 3.5W model.
3 Thanks
Not sure if itâs been mentioned, but the Sanmu 304 is inexpensive and impressively powerful.
4 Thanks