Laser Brand advice

[gandalfthegrey]

Hi All,

Have been out of the game of a few years and looking at investing in some more lasers. I'm looking for some advice on what the good brands are.

Here's what I've heard:

KVANT: Really good but to buy something big would cost
Lasers from China: Cheap but don't even go there
Laserworld: Don't even go there, they get them from China...

Any other input gratefully received. I'm not aware of any other good brands out there.

Thanks

[sbk]

Hi,

Your statements are somewhere between reality and myth :-)

Kvant : are good and reliable lasers, yes. Clubmax range is still affordable, and should probably be sufficient for your needs.

China : cheap, even very cheap and unfortunately that is for some reason. But there is also good quality out of China, though not as cheap as the cheapest. Think Able or Lightspace are among the best.

Laserworld : yes, the "Laserworld" range of the Laserworld group is somewhow targeting the low range market. But they also own other, much better brands like Tarm and RTI, which makes very good quality lasers.

There is also plenty of other brands which you should consider in the same price range, like Live-Lasersystem from Austria (have a look here, which offer some HD systems with very low divergence, which makes the laser beam really look like a laser beam after a distance (aka tight, thin beam) and also keep a high power density further which makes the beam much more visible. So you can go with a lower powered HD system which will look as bright as a higher powered standard one. Also many other "goodies" like case active heating/cooling for operation between -30° and +50°C, etc.

Hope this helps.
Sebastien

[aricha]

You can buy a projector from China
and replace scanners to any of ScannerMax from Pangolin

[sbk]

You can buy a projector from China
and replace scanners to any of ScannerMax from Pangolin

Or you can just buy right from the start and spare you many troubles... Been there, done that.

[norty303]

Agreed, there are some very tolerable lasers from China now.
Especially since they seem to have got a fairly good all in one RGB module design that is very acceptable and seems to be cheap to produce.
As well as Able and Lightspace already mentioned, also look at GoldenStar, Opt Laser and 520 Laser (Saifer Song's company, I think he was with Lightspace previously)

I've bought Goldenstar and Opt in the last 12 months.

Most can offer you upgrades for scanners if you want them although don't know how many/any work with ScannerMax. Certainly you can get EMS though.