Wicked Lasers S3 Spyder Arctic

[lasersbee]

It's not a passion... it's an obsession...

Jerry

[mixedgas]

In other news, LPF has deleted almost ALL threads related to arc*tic, except the "How to improve the optics" thread.

Leading to serious ethical questions about the LPF management in my mind. Not that you could hold a "web forum" to journalistic standards

So far it looks like the thing is the Casio Diode and a poor quality single element lens, now the folks that got ripped off have no place to vent...

No reviews, no reverse engineering, no nothing.


Steve

[flecom]

well most of the arctic threads were just a bunch of flame wars from what I saw...

the thread about fixing the beam should be a good warning to stay away from it...

and if they were deleted for more nefarious reasons, well, while I would disagree with it personally, its his forum and he can do what he pleases on it..

what I do not understand is how much WL could possibly be paying to make it that worth his while, I mean they get $250+ a month in "donations" to run the forum, so they should have hosting covered (its only got like 13k members so its not like he needs 20 MySQL servers or something silly)

again, they have their world, we have ours, just let it be

[ElektroFreak]

As I haven't even looked at any of those threads I can't speak for their content, but I do know that the mods were upset by all the free publicity WL was getting from the existence of those threads, coupled with the flaming that was apparently happening. To my limited knowledge, those are the primary reasons for the disappearance of those threads.

[pullbangdead]

I think the threads were disappearing at least partly because policing those threads was taking as much time as policing the entire forum for the mods. Leaving the trash in the house attracts flies, and makes extra work for the fly swatters. I wish there was a better solution, a lock and an archive maybe? I don't know personally, and barely care since I stayed out of those threads.

As far as signal-to-noise, yes, LPF struggles on that. You definitely have to keep your lock-in amplifier going constantly to get the full signal out, and even with my level of participation I've missed entire threads of good info because of the noise level. You learn whose posts to look for after awhile, and what sections to watch, etc. It is a struggle at times, but at times it's really a rewarding adventure. Like the local dive, there's always something going on, even if it's something from which you have nothing to gain. And I like to think I contribute somewhat to the signal level most of the time, as well.

[lasersbee]

I like reading your posts over there... you always have some logic
or point of view to contribute...IMO..
There are obviously others as well on LPF that contribute to the signal
side of the ratio....

Jerry

[Things]

I locked the arctic threads, simply because people couldn't control themselves and I would come home every day to a couple hundred reported post emails on the same thread. Told people to keep the insults etc to themselves, but it was exactly like talking to a brick wall.

I'm not sure who deleted them though. I didn't mind if they stayed, there was some good info buried amongst the crap. Oh well ...

Yes, people are starting to get their arctics, won't be long before someone with a power meter gets one. We'll just have to live with the "How many balloons it can pop in a row" power measurement for now

[Hemlock Mike]

I have my DIY 445 portable (HM445) which I turned down to 700 mW. My Arctic is reported as shipped and I will be doing a "throwdown" comparison/review when it arrives. At class IV, Power is not the dominating factor here.

HMike

[ljk]

I also have one on order from June 11th I will do a review also when and if it shows up.

[flecom]

I picked up a 900mW 445 DIY portable on LPF in a jayrob stainless host... its really nice, unfortunately turning the pot down all the way on the driver it still does like 350~400mW... so maybe an inline resistor is in order or something...