I ordered a 50mw 650nm "new wish" style red laser pointer from Gadget town last Wednesday evening. Four business days later (with the free shipping) it arrived.

I'm very happy with this laser, especially given that it was only $16.99. It is easily as bright as my old Pulsar that I bought years ago for around $200. Compared to my open can DVD burner home build running at 380ma, I'd say this is about 1/3 as bright. Which is nice because I wanted something bright, but not as powerful as my home build.

It comes with batteries. The beam is well columnated and easily visible in a dark room without any fog/smoke/etc.

So, to those considering Gadgettown I say go for it.

Edit: Here's the link - http://www.gadgettown.com/50MW-Beam-...Light-Red.html

So, I carefully took this pointer apart to see what was going on inside. No potentiometer. However, there was a resistor soldered inline with the switch and negative contact spring. I thought to myself "I wonder if this 50mw laser is the same exact laser as the 100mw laser, except they put this resistor in the 50mw to limit the current and output to 50mw".

That idea makes sense because, why manufacture two totally different lasers when you can just modify the same one and sell it for different prices based on output. Meaning, the $16.99 50mw laser is the SAME as the $27.99 100mw laser, just with a current limiting resistor to differentiate the two.

OK, so with this theory, I soldered a bridge wire to bypass the resistor. Low and behold, I was right. The laser looks about twice as bright now and the beam is much easier to see. I've had it running for several minutes with no problems.

This is the same company that sent me 20 wrong flashlights, and whos response to the problem was a "they're pretty much the same" kind of attitude. They gave me a $10 coupon to a $200 screw-up

I guess I got a stockroom employee who was paying attention to my order slip.

What were you doing with 20 flashlights?

selling them to people who couldn't see

very noble of you mohrenberg

I ordered a couple of green lasers from them awhile back but they were underspec and they both died in less than a month. Cheap lasers are kinda a crapshoot it seems some time they are sweet and sometimes they aren't .

Well, they sent me what I ordered and I was happy to find out that I could easily modify the 50mw into a 100mw.

I've been using it a lot with the resistor bypassed and it's still going strong. 100mw red for $17. Not bad!

lol sorry, they were the cree hosts with focusable heads. I was turning them into kits. I've still got about 10 of them in the basement, but the pill has been modified so the heads slide right off now, and the LED's were given away...so they are scrap now.

Other than that they seemed pretty good. They ship from brooklyn on all their ebay listings. It's jsut that they sent me the wrong items....twice (bought 10 flashlights, twice) and the second time i spoke with them BEFORE ordering them, letting them know what happened. They assured me the correct ones would get sent to me the second time, and then promptly mailed me the wrong ones.
But you really can't complain...just know that you can't trust a chinese dealer...