# Luckyduck Green Keychain Laser



## FlashlightPhreak (Jul 23, 2006)

Does any CPF'er own one of these? If so, what do you think of it? What does it cost? Has anyone tested the mw output on a power meter? - AND lastly, can it be modded?

Thanks
Flashlightphreak

PS - I like the size, but would appreciate hearing someone's review of it...


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## Dj_sTyLz808 (Jul 23, 2006)

I know that fellow CPF'er "The LED Museum" did a review on it you should check it out.Im pretty sure it costs around $50-60 and the output was around 6mW's but I dont think it was moddable.


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## FlashlightPhreak (Jul 23, 2006)

Thanks Dj....


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## Yobresal (Jul 23, 2006)

I own one of these little guys. It will put out 5mw but it drains the batteries extremely fast. Also today it has been starting out at 5mW and them dying down to .5-1mW. This is probably due to the 100+ degree whether as this has never happened before. The pot is not under the button of this unit, and it appears to be a dangerous job to remove the module from either end. I would not recommend trying to mod this one. It is still the smallest green laser I have seen though which is reason enough to add it to the collection.


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## The_LED_Museum (Jul 24, 2006)

My evaluation of one is at http://ledmuseum.candlepower.us/fifth/keygreen.htm if anybody is interested.
I wasn't aware that LuckyDuck was selling these, or I might have piped up earlier.


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## Sigman (Jul 24, 2006)

Craig, is yours the same as the one LuckyDuck folks are selling?


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## The_LED_Museum (Jul 24, 2006)

You know, I honestly don't know if the LuckyDuck keychain green laser is the same as the one that I have...


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## illumiGeek (Jul 24, 2006)

I got one from LuckyDuck with the HALFOFF coupon code for $33.50. (was $67 at the time - it's currently on sale for $47, but the coupon no longer works). It's a nice unit. Seems well made and produces a nice beam under dark conditions (and even not so dark conditions).

It is a bit power hungry and will NOT perform well using the commonly available AG13 Alkaline batteries. The documentation states that it is designed for Mercury batteries, which of course are no longer available (at least not in the US). I tried mine with Silver batteries and it's working well.

With Alkaines you will only get around 15-20 seconds of bright output, then it will drop in power significantly (I would guesstimate 60-75% visually). That power level will continue for another 5-10 seconds and then it will drop to almost no output (you can still see a dot if pointed at something very close, but there is no usefull output). After a short off time to give the batteries time to recover you can get more output, but the time intervals get shorter each use.

I put some silver cells in mine several days ago and have been using it quite a lot with some extended runs of more than a minute and it is still performing well.

My only gripe is the shiney chrome finish. Since this is a "keychain" unit it should have a more durable finish. The chrome scratches easily. I haven't even put keys on mine yet and it is already scratched up a lot just from the attached keyring and clip. I'm going to see if I have some clear heat shrink that's the right size and give it some protection.

I have no idea about modding since I haven't tried to take mine apart. Modding something that runs from button cells just doesn't seem practical to me, so I don't have any interest in modding this unit (but I reserve the right to change my mind later).

Anyway... hope this helps.

Aloha, iG (Tim)


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## illumiGeek (Jul 24, 2006)

The_LED_Museum said:


> You know, I honestly don't know if the LuckyDuck keychain green laser is the same as the one that I have...


Craig,

That appears to be the same unit. Yours looks exactly like mine (sans the LuckyDuck.com logo), except the finish on yours looks textured. Or is that just from using it as a keychain? Even the attached keychain, clip and ring are the same.

This also appears to be the same laser sold by Z-Bolt.

And yea, battery life sucks bad with Alkalines. Try Silver Oxide cells. Much better!


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## illumiGeek (Jul 24, 2006)

Just did a quick search for Green Laser Keychain on ebay and found 2 listings for a unit that looks different. The spec's say it is just over 2.5" long, which would be about the same size, but proportionally it looks longer in the pics. It has a longer front cap with a lip, and they keychain and clip are different. In the picture of it being held in a hand it looks much longer than 2.5 inches (unless that is a really tiny hand).

So it looks like there is at least one more "keychain" greenie on the market now.

There are other things in the spec's that look suspect as well... It says only 10% output variance after 20 minutes. That means this unit either has significanly less than 5mw output, or they have found some nuclear powered LR44 cells (or the spec's are just plain wrong). Actually, Z-Bolt claims that same spec as well. Hmmm... I think that must be a miss-print. It should read 100% output variance after 20 seconds. :laughing:


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## noah (Jul 25, 2006)

These are made by Lightvision. I purchased a couple samples from onpointlasers.com for comparison and theirs were about .5" longer. I don't know who the manufacturer of that product is. I believe onpoint is the supplier for z-bolt, so this is probably not the same product reviewed by Craig, but I can't be sure. 

The batteries are tiny so they won't last long. Beam quality is also not quite as good - if you point it at a wall you'll probably see more speckles than normal (at least on a normal Leadlight). You can't modify it, and you'll crack the housing if you try to. 

This is a really fun product. In terms of quality, think of it like a camera or any other electronics item; smaller is cooler, but some sacrifices are made to reduce size.


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## illumiGeek (Jul 25, 2006)

Really? The picture on Z-Bolt's page looks more like the unit from LuckyDuck and the one LED Museum reviewed. It has the shorter, rounded front cap without the lip? Oh well, I guess you would know better than me.

I really like my LuckyDuck keychain greenie. Except for the chrome finish that scratched off almost immediately. Battery life so far has been really good with Silver Oxide cells (Energizer 357/SR44 type). LuckyDuck should update the doc's to recommend the Silver cells since Mercury cells are not available any longer.

Oh, and the spec's at luckyduck.com says the output mode is pulsed, but its' actually continuous, isn't it (mine doesn't look pulsed)?

What is the recommended duty cycle on this unit? I have run mine for up to a minute and it just gets barely warm to the touch. I'm assuming this keychain model doesn't have APC and should not be run continuously?

Thanks.

Aloha, iG (Tim)


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## FlashlightPhreak (Jul 25, 2006)

Thanks to all for responding !

FlashlightPhreak


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## illumiGeek (Jul 28, 2006)

Thought I'd post a little update. I've been using the same Silver Oxide Energizer 357 cells since the weekend. Batteries are still going. Not as bright as when fresh, but still producing a visible beam (barely). Been using it quite a bit.

Don't really know how much total run time it's been, but it's a lot more than I expected (burned through 3 sets of Alkaline batteries the first day I had this keychain greenie).


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## FlashlightPhreak (Jul 30, 2006)

Thanks illumigeek for the update...


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## illumiGeek (Aug 2, 2006)

Okay, I finally burned through my first set of Silver Oxide cells (Energizer 357). Got about a week of use out of them. Pretty good, really, for something that runs off of tiny button cell batteries.

For the record, LuckyDuck says the unit uses the "H" size battery, but what is included are L1154 cells, which are "J" size. These are also known as SR44/LR44, S76/EPX76/A76, 357/303 and several other variations of those letters and/or numbers. They are very common button cell batteries used in watches, cameras, clocks, kitchen timers and the like. Most available are the cheap Alkaline variants (A76/LR44/AG13) which work fine in watches and timers, but rather poorly in higher drain devices like cameras and lasers.

After trying the LuckyDuck Jasper Keychain green laser with Alkalines when I first received it I was ready to pack it up and send it back. I burned through 3 sets of Alkalines in a couple of hours of intermittant playing. Couldn't run the unit for more than 15 seconds without a significant drop in power, and had to wait a while for the batteries to recover before I could get any useful output again. Deffinitely not good with Alkalines (AG13/LR44/A76, etc.).

Decided to try some Silver Oxide cells before giving up on the unit, and I'm glad I did. MUCH better performance with the silver cells. Continuous on times of up to a minute without a noticeable drop in power (note: I didn't try anything much over a minute because green "pointer" style lasers are not designed for continuous running). Even after a week of use I could still get a minute of stable output.

There was some loss of brightness over the week of use. But it was still capable of producing a visible beam, and it didn't have to be totally dark to see it. This is not unexpected, as Silver Oxide cells do suffer from some voltage drop over their useful life (similar to Alkalines). Unlike Alkalines, though, they don't drop voltage under load so they are better suited to devices that draw moderate amounts of current.

On the 8th day, after some heavy playing, I finally started seeing the power drop off sharply (similar to what I experienced with FRESH alkaline batteries). I'm sorry I didn't keep track of the total run time I got out of it, but I am quite pleased with the useage I got from the silver cells. Battery life is still nothing to write home about, but it is more than enough to make this a useful tool.

If you use a green laser pointer heavily, and battery life and cost are a concern, then a "pen" style 2xAAA battery unit with rechargeable cells might be a better choice. But this pointer is around half the size of the pen style pointers, so it's a lot easier to carry around.

The down side to this is, or course, Silver Oxide cells are a lot more expensive than Alkaline button cells. Locally I found the Energizer 357 cells at Wal*Mart for $4.87 for a 3 pack. At Marukai I can get AG13 Alkalines for 99 cents for a 10 pack. That's a 49:1 price differential!

What's that you say? Buzz kill! Well then, have I got a URL for you!

SR44.COM!

As low as 49 cents a cell, and free shipping on orders of 25 or more. I ordered a 25 pack on the 25th and received it on the 1st. And that was to Hawaii!. At $16.49 and free shipping that works out to just a hair under 66 cents a cell. They are the exact same batteries I purchased at Wal*Mart, only bulk packed. The Wal*Mart batteries (with tax) were $5.07 for 3, or $1.69/cell. I'd say that was worth a few mouse clicks and a week wait.

Just a few more observations about this laser.

As I mentioned before, the chrome finish scratches off really easily. And I don't mean just scratches; I said scratches OFF, as in "oh look, there's brass underneath". If you care about appearance, then you should consider wrapping it in clear tape, or some clear heat shrink tubing. I'm going to try the latter, but I haven't gotten around to it yet (mine's already scratched to hell, so I'm in no rush). My only concern with the heat shrink is if the amount of heat needed to shrink the tubing will hurt the laser? Anyone know if heating up a greenie briefly will harm it?

The laser is supposed to be pulsed output, but it didn't look pulsed to me until my batteries got very weak. With fresh cells I tried sweeping it across a wall and didn't see any dashed lines. Maybe I wasn't sweeping it fast or far enough? Anyway... once the batteries got weak I did notice some dashed line effects when sweeping the beam.

The unit seems to have some kind of power regulation. When you press the button it turns on pretty bright, but it seems to fluctuate slightly for about a second, and then the beam brightens up notceably and stabilizes. It maintains this bright, stable output until you power it off (or the batteries poop out). Maybe something to do with the pulse circuit? I dunno... but it's something to be aware of if you want to use it in very short bursts since it will affect how bright it appears.

As for the parts unscrewing (per the LED Museum's review) I have not run into this problem. I have mostly been carrying it around hanging from my belt (clipped to a belt loop), or in my pocket. Maybe it's only a problem with a bunch of keys banging against it? Seems like a little drop of LocTite should solve that problem.

Well, this turned out to be a lot more than I had planned to type. Sorry for being so long winded... I hope someone finds this info useful.

Aloha, iG (Tim)


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## FlashlightPhreak (Aug 6, 2006)

Nice review Tim. Thank you.


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## wildta (Aug 31, 2006)

How does this keychain laser compare to the stock 105/110 in terms of brightness?


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