250 mw? That's got to hurt the wallet!
But yeah, this is the biggest change that I think we'll see. 473 nm lasers are *expensive*, and likely will remain so. But it appears that 445 nm blue is now going to be dirt cheap. (Less expensive than even 405 nm violet!) So I believe we'll see a rapid move towards 445 nm blue as the new standard for "blue" in solid state projectors.
Sure, guys like you and I who already have 473 nm lasers will continue to use them, but I think it's doubtful that newer projectors will include this color. (In fact, I'm planning on building a beam-only projector this summer that will only have 445 nm blue in it, so in a way the shift away from 473 nm blue has already started for me. I know I'll miss the bright blue in this new projector, but I can't afford 300 mw of 473 nm blue to put in this rig. But I can surely afford 500 mw of 445 nm blue!)
In a few years, I predict that 473 nm lasers will be quite rare compared to today. I think it will be interesting to see how the artwork changes to deal with the shift towards 445 nm blue as the "new blue"...
Adam
473nm laserpointers just have become instantly worthless, 1+Watt 445 pointers will be common in no time.I know that if I were a laser retailer, I'd be *very* worried right now if I had a large stock of 473 nm lasers sitting on the shelf. It might be impossible to sell those lasers at any reasonable price in a few weeks / months.
That's a REAL shame. There's NO reason for more than 5mW for use as a "pointer". A "pointer" only needs to be bright enough to point to the subject of interest.
All these lasers in handheld cases with outputs higher than that are toys for those with serious Star Wars light sabre fantasies. What's another use for that much power being hand held? To light matches? To burn bugs? One Watt to burn a bug???
Sooner or later little Davey from the LPF will blind little Susie (who doesn't care one bit about lasers or the Start Wars fantasy life of little Davey), and we'll have the requirement for a license to buy ANY laser from then on. This is inevitable.
As soon as anyone wants to actually DO something with their laser's beam of light, the laser needs to be mounted rigidly to something. Handheld lasers with outputs over 5mW are directed energy weapons, not toys, and should be treated as such in my opinion.
I'd say ... not all the participants of the 445 groupbuy will be putting their diode in a projector.
"Use The Force, Luke."
also possibly stupid question but everyones super happy ripping apart these unsuspecting projectors... has anyone tried "playing back" a beam/graphic show with one and seeing what the results are?
I just put 473 and 405 in my projector. I guess I'm going to have to cram the 445 in there somehow. My 405 dichro is from semrock so it will pass the 445. I guess I can combine the 473 and 445 with a PBS and I could get it done!
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