Cheap Lasers?

[Whitty]

hey, I'm from a small time band and am contemplating buying some lasers to make our live show really kick ass.

what are your guy's opinions when it comes to value for money etc?

 

also, what sort of mW should I be looking for? I'd like it to be powerful enough to wow audiences in most mid sized venues. (also just out of curiosity, how powerful are most professional laser systems, like the ones you see at massive outdoor events etc.)

 

I'd like to spend no more than around $500au (which probably works out to about 5 english pounds, ** laughs out loud **) but am prepared to go higher if its really worth the cash

 

I'm looking on ebay at the moment and some of this stuff looks pretty good, but I don't know if it can actually walk the walk...

stuff like these things, what do you reckon?:

 

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Green-50mW-Laser-Li...1QQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/260-mW-Red-Green-4-...1QQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/4-Lens-DMX-Pro-Show...1QQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Light-Emotion-Green...1QQcmdZViewItem

 

though, all of these babies are shipped from china. should I steer clear of the eastern made units?

 

thanks.

 

p.s. yes, I already have a smoke machine :)

[greenalien]

Have a look here - lots of very useful info. Be very careful about buying lasers off Ebay unless you know what you are doing, there are a lot of cheap Chinese-made devices out there that leak a lot of invisible but dangerous Infra-Red laser radiation. Remember that a badly installed laser can cause permanent eye damage so make sure you're properly informed.

[musht]

http://www.laserfx.com might be of interest as well.

[Jamtastic3]

Slighlty 'me me me'...

 

Someone told me today that they went to a hire shop for a laser and they quoted him £60 a day for a 60mW green laser.

They charged this price by taking £1 per mW.

 

Now to me this sounds a bit absurbed but is this how people usually hire out lasers?!

[live]

www.laserworld.com

German made ship anywhere, decent components,even on the cheaper models they have a decent scanspeed or try the kam range of lasers for the price they are not bad

As ppl have pointed out a lot of the chinese lasers are not Rohs compliant or 'ce' marked and are (in the wrong hands) dangerous

I have two laser electronics lasers (500mw and a massive 2watt) that get used on large events that are ilda, do text on the fly,lyrics any jpeg that you scan in via a pc, it is a case of you get what you pay for with lasers,dont be tempted by claimed big o/puts on a lot of them,if you dont know the make (i.e. they dont have a credible website or manufacture other equipment) use caution.

if its just to be used as a DMX controlled effect for over the band on to the crowd take a look at the 'shuttle' type lasers with 4 heads and 4 diodes (two red two green) that you see on e-bay laserworld do a 240mw version that is quite good and I'm sure eu lasers make one aswell

good luck

ps on my av is the 2watt in action

[Whitty]

eee... ok, sounds like this could potentially a little more dangerous then I expected. I mean, I dont wanna take a laser blast to the junk and lose my ability to have kids or anything...

 

I'll so some looking into the links there and see if I can't make up my mind a little bit more.

one of the effects I think would be a must for my laser devices would be that big "sweep" like effect where it kind of creates a big laser blanket that goes out over the crowd... what's that effect called so I can make sure it'll do it...

 

thanks.

[andylights]

... what's that effect called so I can make sure it'll do it...

 

I think you mean 'Liquid Sky' - a high speed flat scan that shows the smoke/haze moving in the flat scan.

 

Regards,

 

Andy

[chipito]

... I dont wanna take a laser blast to the junk and lose my ability to have kids or anything...

To do this sort of damage you'd have a lot more to worry about than future bonking sessions.

The smell of burning testicles would be your most immediate concern.

 

B-)