What's your budget?
Would a Blue laser pop a balloon better at 8ft as compared to a green laser of similar capabilities?Hmm, well, from those four, the hardest thing to do would be to start a fire from dry kindle, and to pop a balloon from 8 feet.
Overall, I'd say a 1W+ 445nm laser would work best for you.
A green laser would also work well, except for balloon pop from 8 feet, and obviously fire starting.
Would this be your first laser?
Do you have a link to the GROUP BUY? I may be all over that. I'd rather go over specked as I typically have higher expectations for things. So this way I wont be disappointed.There is a group buy going on right now and you can get a quality and likely over spec 300mw green for under $150, a bit over after shipping.
Best bang for buck though would probably be the 150mw green pen in the group buy.
Would a Blue laser pop a balloon better at 8ft as compared to a green laser of similar capabilities?
It's not technically my first laser but I want to get a bit more into the hobby. So for all intensive purposes I'm a total noob. I have several cheapie fleamarket gold lasers with all sorts of various fittings and a couple pen lasers that I use for customer presentations.