Hi,
after lots of trouble I would like to share my experience with CNI. Generally the company seems to b regarded as one of the better, but in my experience it isn't any good.
We have a MBL-III 473 nm with 200 mw and a MGL 589 with 150 mW. We bought them about two years ago and after some time slightly over 1 year the yellow laser failed, despite it's 15.000 Euro price tag. The repair was another 6000 and took three months round trip to Europe. Three months later, also the blue one became dimmer and started to fluctuate heavily. We send it in, two months later we get it back completely broken. We went through a German seller, so we have somebody to hold responsible, but overall that's just really poor performance. Both models were 10% fluctuations spec'ed, but the yellow one was below 5 when it was new. After repair it just barely makes the nominal 10%. Peak to peak fluctuation is +-30-40%!
We used the lasers in climate controlled lab setting and the blue one failed after about 100 h, the yellow after 10 h total on-time.
Turns out, another supplier that we just bought two more blue DPSS at 200 mW from, switched sources to CNI, because of the supposedly better quality. Guess what? Both were DOA in their office and now, after waiting for an extra month, they finally got replacements. Even if shipping is to be blamed: then they should ship them better wrapped! For the 500 Euro shipping fee they could have a nude virgin deliver it by hand! I guess it's not the first time CNI ships abroad...
But there is actually a reason, why I think it is the underlying philosophy at CNI that is ultimately responsible. Everything is just dirt cheap! They sell a 15.000 Euro laser and use the cheapest, hand soldered BNC "cable" to deliver it with. The supplied coupling fiber is polished in a horrible way, the cladding is broken off, the core is the only thing remaining at the entry face. For a few Euros extra, they could deliver them with proper Thorlabs patch cables.
Same for the connector to the laser head: who would use such a wiggly connector for such an expensive instrument? If they charged 200 Euro extra, every component could be top-notch and nobody would mind at that total price tag.
Sadly, the lasers that I bought off Ebay, as well as two DHOM models are holding up well... CNI ones are the only ones that failed so far.