Did not expect that...

I've had an eBay 1mw green laser for a month or two now and it's pretty boring, well today it ran out of battery so I replaced them with some Duracells. I got bored and decided to hold it upto a piece of bin bag and sure enough it cut the piece (slowly) in two. I also drew a small black dot on my hand and placed it into the beam and it stung. Did not expect that from a "1mw" laser that I'm guessing is focused to infinity. I think it must be overspec any idea of its true output?

Thanks,
Haydo.

You could look here for help, but it is quite common for lasers on eBay advertised to be 1mW-5mW coming in greatly overspec. I bought a $5 green (532nm) laser pointer that was advertised as <5mW and it meters at 92mW.

Get yourself some safety goggles asap and be careful with your seeingballs.

Cheers!

Wow 92mW that is overspec haha! Will be sure to get some goggles too.

Thanks for the fast reply and advice

make a beam shot, try putting black dot on match head, pop a balloon.. you could be pushing about 50-60 mw or more including the IR. no way of telling for sure without a laserbee or other lpm. how many pounds did you pay for it?