You can find lasers on ebay which use the A140, or perhaps M140 450 nm blue laser diode at a watt or more output for under 100 dollars, I've seen them as low as 60-70 dollars but be careful to make sure the lens they use is glass, not plastic, as those often melt in a short amount of time. Edit: I just went and looked while writing this post, here's one which is likely built from one of those diodes for less than that, but does it have a glass lens?
Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for BX1 Adjustable Focus 450nm Blue Laser Pointer + Battery + Charger + Goggles at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!
www.ebay.com
Here is another one, but same question, glass?
This is not a toy! This laser pointer will cut through tape, burn matches, light cigarettes, pop balloons and firecrackers very easy! Model No: BX9-A (Blue Laser Pointer). 1 Blue laser pointer. Flare forms ： plaque-forming - circle.
www.ebay.com
As kecked answered too, if you don't want to build your own as a newbie, from what I've seen so far, the best bang for the buck for someone new to the hobby are the seven to ten dollar (some charge double or more for the same thing) 532 nm DPSS laser pointers you can find on ebay, their output might be 30 mw, maybe 100, but likely you will get 40-60 milliwatts and since the wavelength or color is green, it potentially could be about as bright to the eye as a 1 watt 450 nm blue, since our eyes are so much less sensitive to the shorter wavelengths of blue than green, these 532 nm green DPSS pointers can be fairly bright at far lower power levels compared to 450 nm blue.
The amount of output power from these inexpensive 532 nm green pointers varies from one to the other from the same manufacturer regardless of being identical models. At this price, I would consider buying three to raise the odds of getting a good one, sometimes you get broken crap from these sellers, but I'd buy three separately, perhaps from different sellers so they don't sneak in a bad one they know is weak, or has problems, some of these China sellers will do that as a matter of normal business for them. Since shipping is free, why not? Easer to deal with if you get something bad from them then too.
One rule of thumb buying lasers over seas (esp. China) from sites outside of ebay is don't believe anything they specify. From what I've seen, the majority of the sellers just add zero's to the power output specifications fishing for fools, or perhaps just to out lie their competitors on the same site, sometimes adding many zeros. I bought one which was listed as 10 watts (listed as 10,000 mw) of 532 nm green when I was new to the hobby, I figured it might be close to a watt, didn't believe it was ten watts, but as it turned out, it was 300 milliwatts, or about 1/3 of a watt. Although sometimes if you message the seller and ask what the real output level is, they might tell you, but also might flat out lie or over inflate the numbers too.
Also, most of these online sellers don't have laser power meters to verify what the output is themselves, duped by one of their suppliers into buying something different for their online store than they were promised, so even if sincere and they are telling you the truth as they know it, they can be far wrong. If communicating prior to the purchase, tell them you have a laser power meter and will return the unit if the output is different than they specify and leave appropriate feedback, if available. If they know it is different they might back out of selling to you and save both of you some grief. Or, they might back out just because they only want compliant buyers too, either way I wouldn't buy from them and count yourself fortunate if they do that.
Wave length：532nm. The use of the laser beam does not allow the irradiation of the eye in front of humans and animals! Beam style: continuous line. Military Laser Pointer Pen Features Model No: G301 (Green Laser Pointer).
www.ebay.com
Do these cheap pointers on ebay go 10 miles? No, in free space without dust they go on forever, you just can't see the beam after a distance due to spreading from divergence, so that "10 mile" figure is seller BS unless you are talking about how bright they can be to the eye at that distance if you are on the receiving end which they can, especially at night, and perhaps even daytime you could see a flash at that distance at these power output levels.
On ebay, they usually list them as "5 mw" (the above listing 5 megawatt due to using caps and not knowing the difference) because over that power level is illegal for them to sell in a pointer configuration in the US, although it isn't illegal to build them yourself. For these cheap pointers, if you want to measure the real output in the visible/green spectrum with a laser power meter, you would need to figure in the IR component for a real reading, these don't have IR filters so the output could be 15% or more infrared, I've measured more, I've measured less.
