Question...modding a Pets laser pointer...

I have a question regarding those little laser pointers that you find at pet stores like "Petco" or "Petsmart". My girlfriend has one she purchased for the cats. The batteries have since then died and she let me pull it apart. Unfortunately, it was caked in so much glue that I damaged some critical internals trying to get it apart. What I noticed on the PCB board was a "tuneable" potentiometer (the very same slotted head dial you find on typical laser pen mods). I went to pick her up another pointer the other day at Petco and found one like hers for only 3 bucks. I had no intentions on wrecking her new one but I noticed it looked a lot easier to take apart. Would it be worth it? has anyone tried this?

Nope. Simple 5mw reds will not get any benefit from a pot mod.
Only change would it would be slightly easier to blind the cat.

On a technical end, yes, you might get as much as 30mw from it, but it still wont burn and it wont last long (burn up the diode and devour the batteries) since the increase in visibility of a red at that pwoer is negledgable, I only reccomend doing it if you want the experiance. untill you get to (I think) 60mw+ you cant burn anything.

I see, thanks very much guys. Figured I'd ask before I attempted. But on the other hand, has anyone seen that green laser pen video? it supposedly converts a 5mw laser pen to at least a 100mw laser pen by simply tightening a pot screw and heating a certain chip and disabling it? what exactly was he heating? google for "green laser pen mod" and his video will be there.

I think i've seen a video like that where they yank out the power control circuitry and max it out using the pot. I'm somewhat amazed that that works at all, but still have my doubts how long it would live.

Some of the really cheap red lasers can be overdriven quite a bit, the 'bare chip' kind seems especially good at that (no idea why). These usually don't have a pot, but just the laser chip hooked to the batteries using only a resistor.

I've seen videos like that, if not that exact one. If you watch carefully he swaps out the lasers because the clip is edited and not one continuous video. It really can't be worth it for the bonuses unless you can get the laser pen really cheap. But if you're really interested in higher powered reds talk to SenKat about diodes for making your own and Kenom is selling pre-built DIY red lasers.

Awesome...thanks very much for your help everyone. Yeah, true, I suppose that video could be a farce after all.

Only certain models of green pointers can be modified by turning up the pot. And even on those you can do it, it varies by the performance of the crystals efficiency.

Many pointers now have a photosensor that creates a feedback loop so even if it has a pot, it won't deviate from it's spec anyway. (U.S. Customs got wise and asked some of the Chinese makers to do this…) Simply turning the pot and getting massive increases in power was true 3 years ago, but not much anymore.

These days most greens can't be pot modded anymore, or if they can, you only get maybe an extra 10-20mW out of them maximum. To get burning/cutting power you generally need to buy a laser at that power