Will green lasers take over the market?

Cousin Pat

New member
any experts out there? Are green lasers that much better? Will they get cheaper relative to red? who are the major players in green?
 
Green lasers vs red....

For more details Id see Vridian, Crimsontrace & Lasermax.
They have green & red units. Green is better but it takes more battery power & will wear out faster than red.
Lasermax markets a rechargeable type green laser aimer. It's compact & can fit most semi auto pistols.
CT puts out a free product DVD. Go to www.Crimsontrace.com .
Virdian has a powerful green laser with a bright white light.

Clyde
 
To my knowledge Viridian and Crimson trace make the best quality green laser. Will they take over the red market? perhaps. Green lasers are much brighter than red and show up better during the daytime. Their downfall is you dont just see the dot on target. You see the whole laser which leads back to you. Just depends on your preference. If someone does go with the green I suggest you spend the money and get one from the companies I mentioned. Cheaper ones have been known to not work so great.
 
CT lasers; Lasermax Centerfire....

Some CT lasergrips & the newer Centerfire Lasermax red laser may need some adjustments. I had to tinker with the screws/tool on my Crimson Trace Taurus Protector lasergrip to get the red dot in line with the snub's sights.

In 2013, my friend's new LCR had to get the red laser system adjusted.
 
They have green & red units.Green is betterbutittakes more battery power& willwearout faster than red.

Green is brighter to our eyes @ the same current as red. What makes you think it will wear out faster? All those moving parts in the laser? Come on man.
 
Some CT lasergrips & the newer Centerfire Lasermax red laser may need some adjustments. I had to tinker with the screws/tool on my Crimson Trace Taurus Protector lasergrip to get the red dot in line with the snub's sights.

You shouldn't have had to I would send em back to CT. CT adjusts each laser 3 seperate times before shipping out on EVERY grip. The should come dead on for 25m. Don't believe me, call em and ask.

Green is brighter to our eyes @ the same current as red. What makes you think it will wear out faster? All those moving parts in the laser? Come on man.

Actually what he said is true, and he is RIGHT. Crimson Trace will tell you all about why if you call and ask. I am no electronics expert, but I got to sit down with their Reps and play with the defender series (cheap red) and their green lasers before they were released to the public. The green in fact uses up batteries faster, and you are right they are both running at 5MW because uncle sam says so. The green with fresh batteries is super bright, however it dulls severely faster than the red does, and CT will tell you that.

Let us also note that NOT EVERY LASER IS MADE THE SAME.

Last I knew.. CT was the ONLY company using a green laser diode. Others are simply filtering a diode to only produce green. At least that's what I was lead to believe, again I am not laser expert.
 
Green

The human eye detects and tracks then color green faster than any other color. I have both and my green is on my nightstand gun in 45 acp. I have flashing green as it is harder to track back to the shooter. Red is fine but green is the only way to go.
 
I don't think they will ever take over the market, but they will likely become more widely spread in use. People like variety though, and I can't picture red lasers ever going under entirely.
 
The thing that made laser sights practical was the development of laser diodes.

The problem with green lasers is that there are no green laser diodes. In order to get green light from a laser diode, you have to start with an IR laser diode and run the output through a frequency doubler to convert it up to the visible spectrum at the green wavelength.

Then you have to filter out any remaining IR light components from the beam for safety.

That means that green lasers can't be as compact as red lasers because of the additional components. Also, because of the losses in the system, they consume more input power for the same output power level. And, of course, it all translates to additional cost for the final product.

I think green lasers will gain in popularity, but it's not likely that they will take over the market unless someone makes a breakthrough in the underlying technology.
 
I have a "red dot" that projects either red or green. Green is much better for visibility. It does take more power, and will drain the battery quicker. That's always been the problem - low power red lasers have been around for a while.
 
You can't filter a red (or other color) laser diode to produce green. It's either green or not.

Red has a lower bandgap voltage than green. If the lasers don't have a fully regulated power supply, then the green batteries will seem to drop off much faster than red.
 
You can't filter a red (or other color) laser diode to produce green. It's either green or not.
It is correct to say that one can not produce green light from another color laser diode by filtering.

However, that does not mean there is no way at all to produce green light from another color laser diode. It merely requires a more complicated process involving frequency doubling, among other things.

Here is an explanation of the process by which green laser light is obtained from an IR laser diode.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_pointer

The green light is generated in an indirect process, beginning with a high-power (typically 100–300 mW) infrared AlGaAs laser diode operating at 808 nm. The 808 nm light pumps a crystal of neodymium-doped yttrium aluminum vanadate (Nd:YVO4) (or Nd:YAG or less common Nd:YLF), which lases deeper in the infrared at 1064 nm. This lasing action is due to an electronic transition in the fluorescent neodymium ion, Nd(III), which is present in all of these crystals.

The Nd:YVO4 or other Nd-doped crystal is coated on the diode side with a dielectric mirror that reflects at 808 nm and transmits at 1064 nm. The crystal is mounted on a copper block, acting as a heat sink; its 1064 nm output is fed into a crystal of potassium titanyl phosphate (KTP), mounted on a heat sink in the laser cavity resonator. The orientation of the crystals must be matched, as they are both anisotropic and the Nd:YVO4 outputs polarized light. This unit acts as a frequency doubler, and halves the wavelength to the desired 532 nm. The resonant cavity is terminated by a dielectric mirror that reflects at 1064 nm and transmits at 532 nm. An infrared filter behind the mirror removes IR radiation from the output beam (this may be omitted or inadequate in less-expensive "pointer-style" green lasers), and the assembly ends in a collimator lens.​
 
Left-handed?....

I'm left handed. I checked the CT lasergrip & it didnt line up with the revolver sights.
The minor tweaks made the sharp screws stick out a bit(which caused tiny scratches with magnum rounds).
CrimsonTrace says the sights are set at the factory but they include a wrench to fix the screws.
 
The problem with green lasers is that there are no green laser diodes
There actually are direct green laser diodes. Just not in the 536nm range. IIRC, they are @ 531nm. The cost is way up there. So is the power requirement.

The main problem @ this point in time is that there isn't some industry need for a 536nm (true green) laser diode to drive prices down.

You have to bear in mind, "cheap" red lasers are only around for pointers and sights because they had other applications that drove the prices down.

If some communication component comes along that needs a direct injection 536 nm laser, then rest assured, "they" will find a way to cheaply grow the substrate needed and a true green laser diode at street prices will appear.

Opps - sorry - major player appears to be Sumitomo LTD.
But, that's not to say there aren't hundreds or thousands of others working on the problem.

One look at the blue LED/Diode/laser tells what can happen there.
After the giants, Intel, HP, etc, spun their wheels, an unknown (Shuji Nakamura ) in a very tiny company succeeded.
Now you can buy a blue LED for about a quarter.
 
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any experts out there? Are green lasers that much better? Will they get cheaper relative to red? who are the major players in green?

I'm no expert, but I have both red and green lasers.

The green is clearly better. The red is very good in low light, but almost invisible in normal daylight. The green is useful in all but the brightest sunlight.

Cheaper eventually? Only time will tell.
 
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