Green laser

im looking to buy a green laser but am usure if its worthwhile without a massive budget.

is there anything for around the 200 pound mark second hand that will a). hold its value b). not look sh*t

No

You will not fulfil both of those criteria with £200. In fact lasers are a money sink generally.

I'm in the process of building a laser at the moment, a green 532nm and I really wouldn't consider spending anything less than £1000 minimum if you are building yourself.

Anything less than that will not be practical enough to ensure you earn anything back from it unless you have a lot of pre-arranged gigs lined up for a smaller setup.

Once you've got your laser built aswell, controlling it professionally is not cheap either and if you can't invest deeply to start with you end up taking a slow and winding path to the expensive route spending more than you expected on route! Its an expensive hobby!

http://www.photonlexicon.com is a great place to start checking things, also check http://www.pangolin.com for control software and ILDA hardware.

The cheap DMX stuff i've come across was really crap and just didn't perform well, and the Laserworld products which i've borrowed & rented have been major let downs.

//t0m

If you are using the laser in a large warehouse for crowds 200-300 then you will need at least a 500mw (true power) laser to cover the distance and a good hazer machine to go with it if you want to get a nice effect.

I was using a Laserworld CS-400G for some warehouse parties I do, main dancefloor is 500 people and from front of laser to back wall is 35m. Using a Martin Magnum 2000 smoke machine I was constantly trying to pump smoke out to keep the beams in view. Next party we put a 1watt green in there, and you could see the beam with very little to no smoke!!

£200 won't buy you anything worth using for a party of that size in my opinion.

//t0m

Suggest buying a cheap Chauvet Scorpion style laser and replace the diode with something like a 100mW or more out of a "stargazer" pen pointer. Which can be had for like $30-40 US.

Which would be illegal here in the United States
but after the pics Ibex posted I assume you guys have more freedom ... figures ...

As someone who has a couple of cheapo "semi decent" chinese models costing about £300 each, I'd say save your money.