LaserWave 640nm -A question for Bridge

[mophead]

I recently (several months ago) purchased a 300mw 640nm LaserWave unit from Marc at CTLasers. I feel like I got a good deal on what I thought to be a good unit for the price. Marc, from a reseller point of view, went above and beyond to get me the module, in a timely manor and a good price. Thanks, Marc and CTLasers.

Fast forward a few weeks: The beams started diverging from the head into two separate beams. This happened even before it was installed into my projector. Laser had less that 5 hours on it. I contacted Marc at CT again, he sent it back to china to be repaired, replaced, realigned or re-whatever. Many weeks went by.... Marc sent me a new head from what he had in stock where I wouldn't have to wait, which was *very much* appreciated.

My new LaserWave 300mw 640nm has alignment issues after only 3 (three) hours on it.

Marc has, and still is going out of his way as a vendor to make me happy.

I have *NO* problems with Marc or CT Lsaers. He has went above and beyond to help me....even to the point of being out of pocket on his end.

*SO*

My question is to Bridge: What is happening with these lasers and what is Laserwave doing to fix the situation?

I know for a fact I am not the only one having problems with these 640nm units.

Any ideas for a long term fix, Bridge?

Thanks.

[megaton]

I don't want to sent to China again my Laser.
Is there any way that can I fix this?

[Phredy1]

My Laserwave 640nm is doing a similar thing. Living with it until a replacement Kvant 640nm shows up.

Laserwave seems to be having serious issues with it's lasers for some reason.....

A BIG thanks to CT Lasers (Marc) for working with me on the fix.

[norty303]

I can only concur.

I sent mine back to Rob Stanwax who did the realignment rather than send it back, so less of a wait, but its clear that something is not right.

I understand that they have gone through some redesign recently (mkIII??) but whether this fixed the problem is unknown. Certainly, if they had some more easily adjustable optics this would be a much easier thing to service than they appear to be currently.

Bridge, this is potentially harmful to your business, last year I was a very happy owner of 6 LW modules, this year I'm less happy and seriously looking at alternatives, as I don't want to have to rely on a warranty that should be a safety net rather than a necessity. I'm sure your distributors could do without the constant traffic too.

[mophead]

I am going to realign myself this time. Might even add an adjustable cube mount, probably will. I know opening the head will void the warranty BUT if it spends more time back-and-forth to China, what is there to loose?

[badger1666]

yes bridge! and its not only the reds your greens are no more reliable, i brought one over a year ago , three lasers later and still dont have a working laser it went for repair two months ago , forgoten what it looks like the longest time i have had a laser that worked was 10 hours, so come on get your act together or some one
like dhom will end up taking away your trade

[edison]

The problem is that whatever the beams align next to eachother its not stable enough. If you can fit a brass mount in it with a good red mirror you should be fine. The better way is to fit a brass mount with PBS. If you can fit in a PBS with mount you could concider joining the groupbuy from Simon

[mophead]

I understand that and have everything needed to repair it; even adding adjustable mounts.

What I really want is the manufacturer to correct their issues *before* the lasers leave the factory.

[flecom]

I have a 550mW 640nm LaserWave... one of the few that managed to escape the far east... I opened it up to see what was going on inside because I had 4 very separate beams coming out, two of which were going in seemingly random directions...

basically the thing is a rig inside... nothing is adjustable except for kind of forcing things, maybe shimming if you can jam it in there... but basically if you look at them funny they are going to misalign themselves...

I will post some pics of the inside of mine soon... the KVant that is replacing it should be here soon

[norty303]

Thats exactly the impression I had received of the internals - no thought seemed to have gone into how they might be maintained at a future date.

It seems that at some point, most lasers will require a little fettling, so to not build this facility in means that they are either considered disposable items, or ones that need far more time than is reasonable to be spent on them.

I think that the next time one of my 640's needs looking at, I'll be seeing if I can add some adjustment in - I think the main issue is the little bounce mirror that feeds into the cube from the side.