1watt laser burning help

Help my 1 watt 445 nm laser doesn't set fire to wooden matches "hard way" I was wondering If it could do with my elevation (6000 feet) it burns through cutting matches in half but no fire. It can burn through hard plastic pretty fast so I'm pretty sure it's one watt. It's from survival laser (Gary/garoq) he says he tests the diodes to put out the specified power which was 1150mw +-150 mw

Have you tried focusing it to a tiny dot?
maybe that's your problem :san:

Actually, setting fire to matches the "hard way" is not a misnomer, you see.

It is actually damn difficult to do that. First your laser must be focused, but then you must not put the match in the very focus, instead just *this* little closer to the laser (not in the perfect focus spot), and while trying to lit it, you have to keep moving it very very VERY slowly.

At least that's what I do, and it sometimes does the trick. Once I even managed to do it with 600mW bluray, though I blame that one on pure luck.

Yeah I have and I'll try what you said eudaimonium