125mW if that's what you mean, sorry I'm not very laser savvy but I'm trying to learn.
What I meant was what is the
actual power output of you Viper...
Perhaps Dragonlasers sent you a graph or power reading with your laser? I know some companies do that.
If not, the only way to know the actual output is by measuring it on a calibrated LPM (Laser Power Meter).
Due to the design of DPSS laser (like your Viper), the
actual power will not usually be exactly the
rated power.
The advertised "125mW" figure is more of a minimum guarantee. That is, your laser should have an average output power of 125mW
minimum over the recommended duty cycle.
If you look at Laserglow's "pricing and ordering" tab on the Aries, at the section in the chart that lists output power, you will see several figures.
To quote the site:
Aries-100 Sustained: 100-124mW
Peak: ~140mW
This means the Aries 100 will typically sustain power between 100mW and 124mW and peak around 140mW. So the 100mW figure is the minimum power you will get.
Here is the spec for the 125mW Aries:
Aries-125 Sustained: 125-149mW
Peak: ~165mW
However, not all sites list power by the minimum.
More often than not, you will find websites that advertise lasers by
maximum power, rather than
minimum. Meaning your laser could be anything
less than XXXmW.
Does that make sense?
As was said, burning power depends on several factors. If power is equal, power density will determine which laser is a better burner.
For example:
Let's say you have 2 lasers that output exactly 100mW (and same wavelength on the same surface). One has a 5mm beam diameter and one has 1mm beam diameter.
The laser with the 1mm beam diameter will burn better because all the power (100mW) is concentrated into a smaller spot that the laser with a 5mm beam diameter.
Another thing to note is that a divergence (how much the beam spreads over a distance) is inversely related to beam diameter.
A laser with a wide beam at aperture will be capable of better divergence than a laser with a small diameter at the aperture.
Your Viper likely will have a slightly smaller beam diameter than the Aries, so divergence of the Aries will be better (meaning the beam will diverge less over the same distance.
