wickedlaser horror story1

[larry01]

I have a 100mw laser I purchased from a company. I have been very impressed with it and it measured 90mw but decided to get hold of some more preferably more powerful so I looked at wickedlasers and this is my experience.
I ordered an elite 150mw from Wickedlasers.com and when it arrived, I measured it. It was 95mw resting at 90mw. I was very surprised and dissapointed so I emailed them. After 1 week of communications, and only after opening a paypal dispute, they agreed to refund my money. There reason? see below copy of thier email:
-----
All Elites series are fully tested; however, there was a mix up when the laser was shipped. Our shipping department had shipped you a wrong laser. We are very sorry for this incident. We will replace your laser with Elite 150 plus that is up to specs. I will personally make sure that you receive one with 175mW.
Again we are very sorry for this incident.

Best Regards,
Jessica Chan
Customer Support Team
Wicked Lasers
------
Now ebay item: 120190569294 which was previousely listed that I had won. I called to see the guy in Hoddesdon with my equipment and it should have been 100mw but measured 55mw! He had two there and the other measured 57mw. When I showed him my 100mw and he was surprised. needless to say we agreed not to go ahead with the sale and it is now relisted, he was very good about it.

Now the big one. I have just purchased wickedlasers GX 200mw - 300mw ebay item: 300179965433
Yes I won it and have it here now. I have measured it and it is 175mw! I have decided to keep it but did expect more. Also the beam is quite wide and so does not burn as well as my 100mw.
My overhaul opinion is that wickedlasers lasers are all underpowered and if measured correctly will not show the power that they should be. My trust 100mw was the only laser outputting the correct power.
By the way, I used a thorlabs tester, I use it for my business and it cost me £1000 and was calibrated 6 months ago.

 

[dr_lava]

Interesting info... but the saying comes to mind:

once fooled, shame on them
twice fooled, shame on you.

I guess the price was too good for you to resist?

 

[kaboom]

I was just recently banned from Wicked Lasers forums because they now have a policy (which I didn't know) that you CANNOT talk about anyone else's lasers except theirs! What a load of BS! Well, they can take their forum and do you know what with it.

By the way, I just got an RPL 400 form Optotronics.......C-O-O-O-O-L! .903mrad divergence, 421mw average output......At the risk of being sarcastic......WICKED!!!!

 

[Flashanator]

Larry so you measured a WL GX 200-300mw, & it was only 175mw

Im considering buying a Sypder II GX, but im hearing all this neg stuff about WL. If its true that WL lasers dont put out what thier meant to, then how the hell are they allowed to sell them?

Is there any1 at WL that is a CPF member & can comment on this?

I just assumed coming from WL, you get what you pay for.

Has any1 measured high powered green lasers from optitronics or laserglow that arent what their meant to be?

Jeez, seems you have to be very carful who you buy a laser from.

 

[WarezWally]

May I suggest you have a gander at http://www.laserpointerforums.com/forums/YaBB.pl

Dont buy from WL, you will regret it

 

[Athoul]

Sorry to hear about what happened. If Wicked said they will resolve the problem I've found that they tend to do so, in my experience anyway.

To say all their lasers are underpowered is a bit inaccurate, I've tested many that met specs or exceeded them. I also have an engineering background (mainly in larger mains powered lasers, but portables are just small inefficient versions of larger DPSS systems) and I use a Coherent Field Max II to test output.

I'm not trying to defend any company or start an argument, but when items are sold in such high quantity, things happen where mixups occur or items malfunction due to shipping etc. Another interesting factor is the temperature they were tested at before being shipped, this is rarely mentioned anywhere, but can have a dramatic effect on output when a person tests it on the receiving end.

I've also tested a two Spyders, one was ~220mW the other ~270mW (averages). Most of the time they are probably at the rated output, but when people get bad units we tend to hear about it more then when peopel receive good ones. This is just human nature.

I've tested lasers from most of the sellers, people sent me them in the past for output testing, repairs etc., I've seen examples that have meet, exceed or been under spec. It happens everywhere that sells portable lasers. Of course companies don't intend for under spec'd units to be received by their customers, but the fact remains.

DPSS lasers, any type, are very delicate. Any shake or bump along the way can cause crystals to missalign ever so slightly but having an effect on performance. The ambient temperature (as mentioned) while operating can and will effect performance, etc. I think many people do not know what to expect, they are not anything like flashlights. What I mean is that there is a potential for some issue with any DPSS laser that is shipped. If a company has a good replacement or warranty policy, then this goes a long way to help resolve these issues.

The underlying issue in my opinion as an engineer, is that companies are marketing devices that were never ment to be mass marketed. Each laser is unique, each one when tested will produce a different result when graphed on an output meter, in some cases vastly different. Some start above spec and then drop to the rated output, others start out below spec and after a few seconds climb up into spec etc. Some work excellent while at room temperate, while other work better when hot or cold. It would be a bit different if these were all direct injected lasers diode, although they are still affected by the same things, you would have less obvious issues. The crystal sets in DPSS just adds another factor for issues into the mix, not to mention lack of proper cooling.

As for eBay.. I can't comment on that as I rarely use eBay. After several items I've bought through eBay were not exactly as described... it's more of ePray, most of the time I rather just deal directly with the company itself. This is just my opinion of eBay in general.

My main desire was to help explain the issues regarding DPSS portable lasers in general. I hope it was at least somewhat helpful. (Sorry for any typos that may have occured).

 

[larry01]

Thanks for your comments which I can fully understand. If I had tested one or two, I would accept that but I have tested 4 from wickedlasers and found 4 out of 4 to be very underpowered and most people would come to the same conclusion. As for the GX, I did expect it to be at 170mw - 200mw but unhappy with the width of the beam. My 100mw laser with a thin beam burns more easily and that is what I was very dissapointed with. They would never advertise a laser as 200mw - 300mw if it were over 200mw

 

[Athoul]

It seems you've had some bad luck with the Spyder series. I'm not contesting that at all. However there's only a hand full of people that have had these that I can think of who have posted about them anywhere. Four units, yeah I can understand how you would be dissapointed. I've had poor units before (it's not like it's never happened) and have had the issue resolved without any trouble, I'm not sure what happened in your case, but I can understand your position.

The beam is thicker you are right, 1.7mm or so on those I tested. The device has better collimation that those with a thin beam, but as the energy density is not as great, burning ability is affected.

 

[Kiessling]

kaboom ... the problems of other fora and your ban there is not a topic for CPF. Please avoid it in the future. Thanx.
bernhard

 

[nc987]

I would recommend a optronics laser. I got a RPL 260 on ebay for 345 bucks and its a fine piece of machinery.

 

[lazerlover]

For 345$ thats a great deal, but as good as the lasers optotronics are, you have to know where they are being made - and in fact, they are made by lambda in China. Thats also where techlasers gets their RPLs from, so you could get one for around 25% off from going through techlasers instead of optotronics. I have not seen one shred of solid evidence that Wicked Lasers or Tech Lasers has sold "fake" lasers or underpowered lasers. The only indication I've seen about this is from newly created accounts that post incessantly about how not to buy from WL or Techlasers. Question is, why are all these new accounts popping up to "warn" customers and make sure they go buy the laser for the higher price from a so-called "trusted" source. At the same time, type in "lasers" in google, and which laser company do you see at the very top? No wonder there are so many people here with no posts who need to make us aware of the "real companies" that sell "real lasers". I've seen the same thing before on a internet pharmacy forum, where there were so many complaints about a website that I've bought from and always gotten my stuff from. Turns out the internet is a good place to mask your true identity and its easy to mislead a few people.

 

[Athoul]

They are not fakes... I've personally compared a few of them to other models from elsewhere. I've not tested all their models of course, but those I had, seemed to be genuine.

As for the RPL, it's actually not made by Lambda. I know that the company and another person who sells them goes to great lengths to not reveal where they are made, so I'll honour that.

 

[larry01]

Well I posted this topic on the wickedlasers forum and guess what????

Yep you guessed, it was removed.

They don't allow anything negative on thier forum!

 

[Kiessling]

In case you overlooked what I posted in this thread, I'll repeat it:

kaboom ... the problems of other fora and your ban there is not a topic for CPF. Please avoid it in the future. Thanx.
bernhard

Thread closed.

bernhard