Hi:
Does anyone have much experience with the quality of Viasho lasers? It seems they are still around, and have become a member here lately. I learned about them in 2004 from the LaserFX website. They seemed to be one of very few inexpensive DPSS suppliers at that time.
Now I hear CNI is considered perhaps the best Chinese laser. However, it surprizes me that there aren't more Viashos talked about here since they were so prominent on the LaserFX site.
I think I will see what they have to offer with the 473nm blues since I'm looking for that now.
I bought a Viasho 150mW in Dec 2004, and didn't do much with it except run it a few times and checked the modulation behavior once. At the time it would meet spec power, at about 150-156mW. It has a respectable beam and low divergence.
Now I'm using it again and will perhaps have a chance to post some technical details in a few days such as scope shots of the modulation, which was supposed to be analog, but is only TTL. It seems to be about 21kHz.
The laser produced it's rated power when new, but now days it can't seem to get over about 135mW. I don't mind much because I consider these cheap lasers to be more wisely used at considerably less than rated power to get a long lifetime.
I didn't persue the non-analog modulation issue with Richard @ Viasho at the time as well, as shortly thereafter my wife got pregnant, and I didn't have time to play with lasers much until now.