Buying 10W vs 15W

[mathijslaser (Mathijs)]

Hi Everyone,

I now have 2x3W & 3x5W. I really enjoy owning my lasers over renting (more margin + option to rent out in future).

I want to get another pair, as I feel 5W wil be lacking if I start doing >1250 ppl venues.
I’m hesitating between 10W or 15W (30kpps).

I think most of my gigs will be indoors still, but once I start having festival gigs, 15W feels like the better allround/future proof choice;

Would there be any reasons to go for 10W over 15W? Is 15W overkill for a 600-1250ppl venue? → this capacity will probably mostly be my target demographic for this year.

Underneath the 2 lasers and their rediculously low Chinese prices

Thanks in advance!

[seb (Seb Lee-Delisle)]

Hi @mathijslaser,

You’ll probably get a few different opinions on this, because it’s quite a subjective choice and really comes down to priorities and working style.

A few questions I always ask myself first:

• Size / weight / logistics - are you operating out of a garage and a car, or do you have a van and warehouse?
• More lasers vs fewer big lasers - flexibility and coverage versus brute force.
• Integration - have you checked how easy it is to fit an Ether Dream inside these units? Some of the smaller units are extremely short on space.

On the power question specifically:

• Indoors (600-1250 people): 10W is usually plenty, assuming reasonable haze and you are not constantly fighting massive LED walls and movers.
• Outdoors: Personally, I think you will struggle to get satisfying results from 15W lasers outdoors unless it is very dark and very hazy. More power helps, but it does not magically solve atmospheric reality. For outdoor work, I would consider 25W a minimum.

So is 15W overkill indoors? Not necessarily, but if you are concerned about size, weight, storage, and transport, 10W would usually be absolutely fine.

If it were me:

• I would lean towards more smaller units (10W) rather than fewer big ones.
• Easier transport, easier rigging, and more creative positioning.
• Shows that fit in a car are underrated

But if you are genuinely planning for festivals and outdoor work in the near future, you will likely need bigger lasers anyway.

(I would also spend time making sure that you have some kind of combined ethernet and interlock solution, ideally with each laser ether net in and out (to do this it needs a built in network switch). Also would recommend standardising to TRUcon power as soon as possible.)

There is no wrong choice here, just different trade-offs.

hope this helps!

Seb

[mathijslaser (Mathijs)]

Thanks again for the thorough reaction, perfect argumentation to find the right fit!
Logistics are not a problem for now, I have a spacious station car that’ll fit quite some stuff with the bench down. The need for more power outside anyway, gets me to think again, but larger indoor venues are probably earlier on the list, so in the 2-4000 people range 15W might be still be a more future-proof solution.

The price difference is relatively small in terms of percentage W increase, might just go for 15W as logistics aren’t the issue for now.

Upgrading for better/more efficient cable management and built in ether dream is also absolutely something I’ll have to define and dive into soon… so many things that take research and investment when upgrading to a more professional set up hahaha, but I’m loving the journey!

[Stuart_Hall]

I also run a business doing PA work and one thing we say is if you put out a larger PA then you can turn it down. If you put in a smal PA then you can only turn it up so far. The same goes for the lasers we use. We use EMMA laser exclusively and they have pots on the back so that you can turn down the Red, Green, and Blue beam powers. So if we go into a small venue that does not need gut busting power we turn the lasers down I also feel this helps with the longevity of units. So personally I would decide how many projectors you need and then save to get the most powerfull units you can afford.
It is also worth remembering that divergence is a very important factor in how bright a laser looks to the general public. I remember working with Genesis in 1978 when we had just one five watt argon ion laser which looked stunning even on outdoor festival events as it had a divergence of just 0.5 mR. And back then we were working with General Scanning G100 PD scanners and we could still make an audience gasp when we let the laser fly !

[Kevin_T (KBO)]

Hey @mathijslaser-
I notice these laser names are the same as KNIGHT. Where are you getting this from / what seller?

I have 2W, 3W, 12W, and 15W. All China lasers. The 3 and 12 are SHEHDS, and the 15’s are YUER. I’m not sure who manufactured the 2W’s.

For my next purchase, I’ve been debating how to utilize my budget. Specifically, I’ve been between OPT’s PR5 series or PR10series. You can see the huge price leap between the two series, but within a series, prices don’t change much as you go up in wattage (aside from their killer sale on the PR10000), so you might as well get the 8W if you’re going with the PR5 series. The kkps is 40 across the board for both series.

OPT’s customer service is amazing, they are recommended by @seb , and they are made to order.

Unless you’re going with KNIGHT or another seller with a reputation, if you’re going for China lasers, maybe lean towards OPT PR8000 and then get the 15W from someone cheaper? China companies say they warantee their products, but they really try not to because shipping is so expensive. The reason I have this laserbar is that on day 1 of receiving my lasers, I reported to my rep at YUER that the galvo on one of the 15W lasers was making all sorts of annoying noises, but all they had in their US warehouse was one laserbar… They would not send a new galvo and they would not fix or replace the 15W as a whole.

For Chinese lasers- they typically put a lot of their wattage into blue, because blue diodes are the cheapest available. One of the main differences between OPT’s PR5 and PR10, which the price basically doubles, is a color ratio of 2:2:4.4 on the PR5, whereas the PR10 ratio is 4:5:5. I believe this may play a factor in white and yellow beams being pure instead of having red lines on the edges (LASER GURU- correct me if I’m wrong!) Divergence is also better on the PR10

I just took a bunch of photos of different colors and clips to show you the difference between 12W and 15W, but my camera’s really only capturing the difference in blue exposure. The 12W is in the middle. Photo’s taken from 33feet away from the lasers.

OPT pricing for consideration:

I don’t think 15W is overkill for your audience capacity (for indoors). Like you said- more future proof.

[fohdeesha (jon)]

for what it’s worth, love my 8w PR5 - zero complaints, have had no problem pushing the scanners, run great

[mathijslaser (Mathijs)]

Hi Kevin,

I import them directly from Knight.
The diode ratio of the MAX-10 15W version that I bought when i posted this, is (advertised as) 1:1:1 and I’m happy with the quality and customer service they provide (compared to the price). I don’t really want to switch/mix brands, as I’m familiar with the color output and laser internals of the Knight units and don’t value scanning rates of above 30 kpps for beamshows.

For now I’ll stick with knight; if I’d ever want to really upgrade in reliability and professionality, I’d sell all my units and go for a premium/custom solution with ED/Switch etc built in.

[seb (Seb Lee-Delisle)]

Hi all,

I’m going to close this thread here as the original question has been answered and it’s starting to drift away from the core topic.

There’s some solid info above around power vs real-world use, and I’d like to keep threads like this focused so they remain useful for others reading later.

Thanks everyone for the input.

Seb