Where should I start...

Hey everyone, I've been a long time lurker of this site and finally decided to make an account.

As of now, I currently only have "5mw" Amazon lasers (which I suspect to be highly overspec), I REALLY would like something more powerful, but don't even know where to begin to look, and I was hoping to get some ideas from those who have the experience.

I live in the US, and I'm looking for a good burning laser.
I honestly don't know what to look for in a laser and I'm not looking to spend more than $50 as of right now. (I'm getting goggles as well, safety first.)

Hopefully you guys can point me in the right direction.

Thank you in advance, and I'm sorry if i posted this in the wrong place.

Welcome to the forum. The BST section in this forum is your best source to find nice lasers and cheap prices... check it out... new lasers on sale every week...

Welcome to the forum. Here is my recommendation:

Wait for a bit, save some, and get a quality laser like this:
S06J 12X 405nm Diode driven @ 450mA or so.
In a quality host.

Why? Simple: when you get a 50 dollar burning laser, you will wish you had spent the 50 dollars on a high quality burning laser. Cheap lasers have very little resale value, while high quality lasers tend to hold their value over time. Except with new wavelengths-they start high and then drop in cost as the technology becomes more and more available.

wannaburnstuff said:

Cheap lasers have very little resale value, while high quality lasers tend to hold their value over time.

Click to expand...

Looking at past posts I can't really see what you are saying.
I have 2 argon lasers that costed (or still cost in one case) over $5000 each and bought them for $300 and they are quality lasers.

I have a 1W blue laser that a few years ago would cost many hundreds of $$$ and now has a value of $150.

Green lasers are down in their price as well... quality or not.... Reds... no one would have ever thought to see a cheap 1W red laser not too long ago and now the price is very low.

So my personal opinion is that quality lasers might last longer and work better, but as far as mantaining a value, well maybe in one year time, but over that and the value goes down, no matter what.

I am just going by my experience. I bought a Jetlasers Laser for 250 dollars 3 years ago and sold it not long ago for 230. That is pretty good price holding. Obviously technological advances such as direct green diodes are driving the cost of DPSS 532 down. What I am mainly selling is that lasers at or below 50-60 dollars have a difficult time maintaining resale value since new ones can be had for so cheap.