After hearing a lot of good things about Sanwu, I bit the bullet and ordered a blue 304 model rated at 3000mw, with 2 x 3.7v lithium batteries.
The outcome was a little disappointing....
The batteries appeared to be rechargeables, and not fully charged at that. The laser itself – solid, heavy construction but nowhere near 3w. I put that down to the batteries and put in a fresh pair of 3v Duracells, but the same result was evident: a beam that was around 150mw max.
The beam divergence is huge too. at 3 metres, the rectangular 'dot' was just under two inches wide, at the tightest focus.
Has anyone else had a similar experience? I did wonder if there were different power settings triggered by a sequence of button presses, but it appears not (there's one on/off button on the base).
I'm suspecting a faulty device or as someone suggested on Reddit, an incorrectly seated module. The beam fades after about 15 seconds, which is well under the duty cycle of a minute.
I double checked that I hadn't been shipped the wrong device – they do sell lower-powered models, but in a different form factor taking different batteries.
Customer service has been nonexistent. I have to say, I'm surprised – I'd heard a lot of good things about Sanwu.
The outcome was a little disappointing....
The batteries appeared to be rechargeables, and not fully charged at that. The laser itself – solid, heavy construction but nowhere near 3w. I put that down to the batteries and put in a fresh pair of 3v Duracells, but the same result was evident: a beam that was around 150mw max.
The beam divergence is huge too. at 3 metres, the rectangular 'dot' was just under two inches wide, at the tightest focus.
Has anyone else had a similar experience? I did wonder if there were different power settings triggered by a sequence of button presses, but it appears not (there's one on/off button on the base).
I'm suspecting a faulty device or as someone suggested on Reddit, an incorrectly seated module. The beam fades after about 15 seconds, which is well under the duty cycle of a minute.
I double checked that I hadn't been shipped the wrong device – they do sell lower-powered models, but in a different form factor taking different batteries.
Customer service has been nonexistent. I have to say, I'm surprised – I'd heard a lot of good things about Sanwu.