My Laserworld Disco 500g 500mw Green Show Laser System has arrived

[apdevelopments]

Well it has arrived. I brought a Laserworld Disco 500g last week from Laserworld Switzerland. I paid £500 for it on ebay.
It was quick arriving by UPS, its only been 1 week.

I was quite excited to get it opened and out of the box and thats exactly what I did.

I must say first impressions were good. Its well built and has a nice case. Everything is finished off nicely.

The Mains lead supplied is not much use as its a 2 pin foreign plug which similar to a razor plug. but fortunately I had one floating about spare.

Eventually after looking and checking the instructions I got around to plugging it in.
you turn the key and the fans start.
I was thinking this is good. It has quite a powerful cooling fan installed which was a good sign of power.
Remembering my old Argon days.

I flicked the switches on the back and out popped a nice green beam and got brighter as it warmed up.
As I was playing with it I got it to start its simple sound to light effects which is the usual stuff. flats Circles etc.
Theres a switch in the back which enables you to switch off the blanking effects which increases the brightness somewhat.

So time for the crunch. Lets plug in the PC ILDA Lead and my pc and see if its compatible.
I was amazed. It actually works perfectly with my IShow.
Every thing works as it should and there is no reduction of image size.

The Galvos are not to bad quite quick with some simple animation but struggle with very complex graphics. Well there only 20k!

I was over the moon at that point but unfortunately it wasn't to last.

It was time to see what its doing and get out the Laser Power Meter.
I put up the single beam and took a measurement through the Galvos and front glass and was alittle shocked to see what it was reading.

Ready! wait for it! Yes it was giving out 213mw's

213mw's surely that cant be right. Its supposed to be 300mw min and 500mw max so I would expect atleast 300mw.
I know there is alittle loss through glass and mirrors but this is to much.

So it time to open it up and see inside and take a proper reading direct from the Laser Module itself.

I found when opening the lid that the fan noise was just a fan. The Laser itself is tiny.
I know technology has come a long way since my Argon Days and things have got smaller but this is ridiculous.
So I remove the laser head to take a proper reading.



Here is the Laser System with the Tiny Module Removed. You can see all the other stuff and the two noisy fans blowing away at nothing.

Anyway Meter Reading time.
again I switch on and the photos will revel all.








264MW at its best

I am totally disgusted. Laserworld are selling this laser as a 500mw system and its actually ony 250mw.
I have been ripped off
If they were in this country I would sling it back to them.
Talk about Trades Description Act 2008 or what.
I have no idea where they get 500mw from. They must be smoking something.

Having 213MW's from the front means that the Mirrors and optics are not that good. Loosing over 40mw would indicate that cheep mirrors have been fitted.

I did feel like jumping on it at the time.

Now the Laser is back together I am going to sell it on for hopefully what I paid for it.

I am feeling alittle miffed about it and dont know if you can get more power from if but its probably not worth messing around with it.

Time to think again.

[Lasernerd]

That DPSS looks just like my little 100 mw lasers?

[badger1666]

are you taking that laser power reading from a modulated output
ie let the laser play sound to light if so you wont get a true reading
the only way to do that is to find the laser modulation input on the laser driver dissconnect it fire up the system if the laser comes on then take a reading if it does not feed the modulation input 5volts then it will come on then you will get a true reading doing it the way you have been you will only get an averidge reading not the full output

[thesk8nmidget]

that really is to bad to hear....

unfortunately, im not surprised! it seems like about once a week someone is posting about how their laser from laserworld comes underpowered



i would send them an email.

[FourDee]

Yeah at the laserfreak forums, laserworld is a banned word and is automatically replaced by ******'s
Guess they dont have great experiences

[majorlee]

heheh i just finished my hefty review of my RGB from laserworld

read that and it might explain why yours is underpowered too

sorry to hear your not happy - but just incase to be sure make sure the laser is fired up from an external power source first at 5v, like what was recommended

send them an email and let us know what they say

try these two seperatly and see if the answers are different too

df@laserworld.com (the boss)

pm@laserworld.com (the techy)

i have had considerable contact with LW and i hope u can rectify your situation and i think because European laws apply you can make a complaint to the European Trading standards - i'm also considering this too.

Under German Law you must provide EXACTLY what you advertised, if you cannot supply this then u have to refund a certain amount of money

you entered into a contract though ebay and this is lawfully binding and you are in the best seat here - so i hope it works out for you!

best of luck

[apdevelopments]

are you taking that laser power reading from a modulated output
ie let the laser play sound to light if so you wont get a true reading
the only way to do that is to find the laser modulation input on the laser driver dissconnect it fire up the system if the laser comes on then take a reading if it does not feed the modulation input 5volts then it will come on then you will get a true reading doing it the way you have been you will only get an averidge reading not the full output

When i took these readings everything was disconnected and was not modulated.
On the back of the system there is switches which enable you to switch off the scanning and modulation.
When Modulated your lucky to see 100MW's
I will have a look at the wires inside tomorrow. Knowing my luck I will blow it up which wouldn't be such a bad thing and I can send it back as faulty rubbish.

[White-Light]

I'd contact them with your pictures and see what they say. (Although note it might invalidate your warranty to let them see you disassembled it for testing so you'll need to decide if you want to risk that).

Some people have been unlucky. I was worried about my system which was quoted as 400mw guaranteed, 600mw typical and it turned out to be 677mw when tested direct from the laser modules!!! No comfort to you I know, but proof that not all Laserworld stuff is bad.

They generally seem to be well made, although they do use cheap looking dichros, its just power sometimes seem to be an issue.

My advice is approach them 1st with your pics and let them respond, then if you get no joy, you can threaten to take things further. Let us know what is happening and we can perhaps all assist you with suggestions along the way.

[sbk]

Yeah at the laserfreak forums, laserworld is a banned word and is automatically replaced by ******'s
Guess they dont have great experiences

Yes, because Laserworld's lawyer caused problems to the forum administrators for what was said by members on the forum about Laserworld, and they just decided to censor the name Laserworld instead of risking to have law issues (they seems to be the only one company to have full time lawyer, I'm guessing why...)

I hope they didn't come on Photonlexicon...

[apdevelopments]

This little green laser that is fitted to this system. Is that it with the power output or is there a way of increasing it?
I know with argon lasers you can over power them if you so wish.
We had a 150mw alc60 argon years ago and a company built me a power supply to run it at 300mw's
It worked well. It does shorten the life of the tube but it still lasted years and years.
Could you get a bigger power supply for this little laser? or is it not that easy?