5mW vs 50mW

I bought a 5mW green pen from ebay long before I found this site. I thought it worked great. Good beam visibility and distance. Next I bought a 50mW module from O-Like. Tonight we compared them side by side and we could tell no difference. Any ideas on what is happeing? Is the O-like underpowered? The ebay pen overpowered? I know you can't tell without looking but what is likely?

Chances are, the ebay pen is overpowered. O-Like would never sell a 5mW pointer as a 50mW.

However, if the ebay pointer is the sort of green ebay pen that I'm thinking of (screws in half, black body with silver cap) -- you're better off by far with the O-Like anyways, as it'll work for a long time.

Most "5mW" chinese pointers on ebay are a lot more than 5mW; I have one green that does 60mW. But it's incredibly unstable, and only works when it wants to. Puts out a lot of IR, too.

Maybe someone else can answer this: Are the O-Like greens filtered? If so, it's a safer laser anyhow.

Yeah you've described my ebay pen. How do you know the output power of yours? Is there a way to measure it?

You'd need to buy a LPM, like a Laserbee or a Kenometer... Or you can get someone on LPF who's perhaps close to you to measure it for you.

olike modules are filtered starting at 200mW modules. anything less is unfiltered. but olike modules dont spew too much ir. and like you said, olike has always been reliable for me