Laser FAQ

>Your prices seem too good to be true - how do you do it?
We aim to please.  We save money by keeping a minimal inventory, and I am confident I'll be able to give you the best deal you would find in the world, because my pricing is based on this:  I have volume purchase agreements with my suppliers, which simply means that even though I might only order 1 unit from them at a time, over the course of the year, I will end up ordering a fair bit.  So they give me a great price, and I simply tack on $100, and that is my profit margin - all I expect is that $100 facilitation fee, unless you happen to be extra happy and want to throw a donation on top of that to help continue our cause (our website and related community activities)

>How long do they last?  What's the warranty?
I am only able to pass on the manufacturer's warranty of 6 to 12 months depending on the model you purchase - check the technical specifications link for more details.  The laser systems are however rated for 5000 hours of usage before failure.  5000 hours means 500 all night shows!

>Why is this such a good deal / investment?
If you search the net, or check out your local DJ supplier, you will find 5mw laser show units costing upwards of $1000.  By assembling things yourself, you get to have more power for your cash, which translates to bigger events and more revenue in your pocket.  You can easily rent a 100mw system out for $300 per night, meaning you pay off your investment after only 4 rentals, and your laser would make you a lot more money during its expected lifetime.
 

>Will they be like the cheap little radioshack/spider lasers in effect?
For the current price, yes, they will be sound responsive to music, no more.  Many future options are available, such as vector laser grafix with texture mapped video all in complete SMPTE  sync - but add exponentially to price.  I can supply all, but am more shooting initially just to get lasers out there into hands of VJ's.  Later, after initial investment is paid off, VJ's can add $1000 to add proper galvos and conceptualize in their minds and output to screen.  The units are CW (continuous wave, not pulsed, and have an 10+ KHZ digital TTL modulation input for future computer control / blanking.)

>I've just seen the DPSS laser system you have going on.  I can see all the tech specs, but actually, how strong is it?  Does it look good?  Or is it like one of those crappy crab laser things? How strong is it? 

Well, I guess unless you know a bit about lasers, 15mw really won't mean much to you.  Here's a quick lowdown:  The crappy crab laser things you are talking about typically use a 3 to 5 mw 650nm (red) diode.  We use a 12 to 15 mw 532nm (green) diode.  You might think this would only give you an increase in relative brightness by 200 to 400 percent, but since 532nm is very close to the peak spectral response of the human eye, it appears brighter than it actually is.  As a quick comparison to some of the low-end lasershows you might have seen, if we assign the relative brightness of an argon ion laser (blue/green) a factor of 1, then a 532nm DPSS green laser will have a relative brightness factor of 2.5 to 3. - So what that all means, is that our units will be approx 10 times "brighter" than the crab/widow units you can buy at your local DJ outlet.

So enough of all that, what you really want to know: does it look good?  Of course!  I wouldn't be offering a product that I wasn't proud to represent.  You can use this for small club gigs with an approximate 500 patron capacity - a little cigarette smoke/fog/haze in the air and it will look even more magical! You can use it in larger venues, but it won't outclass hi-end pro lasershows.  If you want to compete in that market, you should write me about upgrading your laser to a higher power unit.  I'm just trying to get these out at an awesome price to get peoples feet wet so to say.
All units over 50mw include active peltier/thermoelectric (TEC) cooling, which improves beam stability & longevity of the laser system.