Need help FAST, please!

Hi!

I just bought a 100mv green laser pen. The thing is that I don't feel its very powerfull at all. I am afraid that I have been scammed and they have given me a 20 mv or something green laser pen, and made me pay for a 100mw one. I bought it online, through a "ebay like" chinese service. The thing is that I have a week until I have to give them my money. So, my question is, how to I know wheter it's really a 100mw laser or not. There are no indications on the pen, except for a small sticker on top that has "danger" in red on it, and says stuff about laser radiation and to avoid eye contact. The sticker says that its a Classlllb product and that its power output is 100mw, but how do I know if this is tru or not? They could have just taken that sticker and put it on a 50 mw pen.

So, is there any way for me to "test" my pointer to find out wether its really 100mw or not? Thanks!

You can send it to a member of the forum who has a power meter, if you wish. There are many trustable people, and Im fairly sure there will be at least 1 close to you so shipping is quick.

If not, try some simple tests.
Can your laser pop balloons?
Compared to the performance of others' lasers on this foruim (pictures etc) how bright does it look?

Option 1: Buy an expensive laser power meter

Option 2: Send it to someone who has one to get it tested

Option 3: Send it back, request a refund, and buy a laser from a legitimate and honest company with a good reputation; i.e. Novalasers, Laserglow, Optotronics, or Dragonlasers.

Most likely, it is not outputting 100mW of green.
It probably lacks an IR filter.

Tell us what you paid, who you paid, and give us a picture/description and we can probably tell you if you got ripped off or not, and if so, how badly.

Hi again and thanks for the fast replies. I study in China so It's probably going to be hard to find someone with a power meter nearby. Is there any way to test it and see if it can do (burn) stuff that a 100mw laser is supposed to be able to burn?

Like el-taco said above, should a 100mw laser be able to pop baloons? At what distance? Should it be able to light matches? Please help with some good ways of testing it.

100mW should:
Light dark colored matches
Pop dark colored balloons instantly within 4-5 feet
Burn dark plastics easily
Light firework fuses at close range
Burn your skin
Burn dark colored wood
Burn holes in dark colored paper

Without a magnifying lens.

ok, I just tried some of the things that RA_pierce sugested, and it couldnt do any of that. I contacted the company that sold it to me and they told me that there are different kinds of laser pens, and that they dont sell dangerous pens, but that the output of the pen indeed is 100mw. Is this possible? If the output is 100mw, it shouldn't matter what typ of pen it is right?

Anyways, I have one weeks time to decide wether or not I want my money back, and Im going to play around with this a bit, and then return it and buy something that will burn stuff mwaahah

In my experiences, the things RA_pierce describes are all things a 100mW laser should be able to do, but I've never been able to do them without a magnifying glass or some other way of focusing the beam to a point.

If they say "they dont sell dangerous pens", to me that would imply all their lasers are below 5mW since a 100mW laser can be fairly dangerous in the wrong hands. The vast majority of good deals on green lasers off shady websites turn out to be scams. Chances are your laser is not 100mW.

pseudolobster said:

In my experiences, the things RA_pierce describes are all things a 100mW laser should be able to do, but I've never been able to do them without a magnifying glass or some other way of focusing the beam to a point.

Click to expand...

Huh... maybe my laser isn't really 100mW then  
According to Nova's specs it peaks at 120mW, but <20mW can't make that much of a difference...
Beam diameter may have something to do with it... My green laser has a 1mm beam diameter at aperture and about 2.1mm at 1 meter...

And I just noticed your signature... Kurt Vonnegut is one of my favorites.

Back to the topic-

There is no such thing as a 100mW laser that is not potentially dangerous.
It's possible that it could have 50% infrared leakage in its output, but even then, 50mW of green and 50mW of IR is still dangerous.
100mW is 100mW no matter how you put it.

Like pseudolobster said, chances are it's not 100mW.

How visible is the beam at night/day? 100mW should be visible in the day and very bright in the nighttime.

-Mark

I would get a refund...if you really can :-/