Yeah, I don't know. The plus side is that they won't see the red light shining on them I guess. If the cockroach stays still long enough, you should be able to punch through his shell or boil his insides if it's dark colored I would think. You can get a 300mW red to do some pretty serious burning from a decent distance away. I don't have a fancy lens on mine, just coated glass, and I'm burning through stuff at 6 feet away.
I see. My experience with buring cockroaches with my Joyrob/DTR 445 maglite is that, the insect didn't really get disturbed when the dot is getting near to it, so I determine that the insect isn't very much affected by light, but when the dot touches the insect, it starts running, I could guess it is more likely that it is affected by the heat.
The Jayrob/DTR 445 maglite is really 1 hell of power imagine how much a 1600mW laser can do at close range. But even at close range a 1600mW monster can't drop a cockroach, I estimate like 2mins of burning... Thanks to the massive heat Sink! It is not like constant burning, if it were then any 700mW can do it and I doubt you need that long to drop a cockroach as well. You need the power to hurt it little by little as you shoot it as it expose itself out of the furniture.. burn it's legs, blind its eye, destroy its wings if it attempts to take flight, and slowly drop it to the ground turned-turtle.
If the author wants to kill cockroach, I highly recommend a maglite kit cuz it is really frustrating to chase insects without forward momentary clicky. If it isn't a momentary button, it be worse if it were located at the back, you got to switch it off when hunting so as to cut down as much unnecessary wastage in operating the LD,. Then when you finally spot the emerging running insect, you need the speed to switch it on. I owned a Spartan 1W and it is really frustrating to use that to drop cockroaches.. Not useful at all. And a G1 lens is far more suitable for killing cockroaches than the Spartan.. My advise and experience to the author, hope you make the right choice. I already made a wrong choice and wasted money by getting a Spartan.
My advise to the author, you need a customised Laser hand-held and yea, you need it with focus and G1 lens... And try to get a copper heatsink instead of aluminium, I think the output power can remain more constant with better heat sinking... My maglite with aluminium heatsink is very bad at sustaining at 1.6W so I need to switch it off as and when I am not using it to burn the insect.. I don't mean power of the Jayrob kit isn't efficient enough to kill cockroaches, but the truth is the truth.. The rest of the features like forward clicky are usefull for chasing inseats so I will still recommend it.
IF you get a 300mW red, I highly doubt it can punch through any cockroach shell. It didn't happened for my 1.6W maglite and you know 445nm is best for black surface and cockroaches are naturally darkish brown or black in colour... Even with 1600mW, I already have many numerous experience with escaped cockroaches while trying to drop it with my maglite... For faster kill, I hope a really higher powered hand held exist.... yea my diode isn't cherry-picked by the makers so mine is only a 1.6W Maglite, so seriously if the author wants cockroach killer, afaik such laser hand-held units don't exist on LPF. I don't know if a 2W laser is sufficient to effciently drop a cockroach cuz I don't own one but IF it is sufficient, the laser diode needs to be cherry-picked by the supplier/makers.... And I hghly doubt the supplier will charge the diode the same cost...
