20 mw leadlight 105 arrived

ok it arrived as 20mw, i took the button off ready to pot mod it, and i found a hole there already, the person who supplied it sweared that leadlight did that and if i quote them the serial number they would confirm it so i took his word on it...

the pot was pretty much maxed out, now here's the interesting part, i turned it again to get more power and it went dim, i tried over and over, then i thought clockwise, i went clockwise, got to full power then dim then brought it back to full power...

and tada, it stuck at what seemed like 5 - 10 more miliwatts of power, i moved the pot once more and it went dim again, way dimmer than a 5mw, I think the pot is faulty...

after playing with it for a few minutes, i got it back up to full power again, brighter than the original 20mw it came as....


the real question

I filled a balloon with air, put a black circle on it with my marker, and then from about 1ft away, i succesfully popped it, it actually made the black ink on the balloon smoke into the air, popped 3 of them now, but he interesting thing is that unless if kept it really still, it actually "cleaned" the black in off, lifted it lol

So, obviously there's more power than 20mw, what power would it be, 30mw enough to pop a balloon at about a ft away (black marker as target)?

Hard to say without a laser meter. It could be 25-30mW or so, I have a 24mW laser that will pop a balloon at about a foot. However I have a 15mW that won't, both lasers have similar beam diameter.

ah ok, just that wicked's website confused me, it claims you need an "extream" laser of 55mw + to pop dark colored balloons, ok wicked has bad information..

thanks (I got a laser between 25 - 30mw then)

Their chart is pretty good, though the balloon popping, imo, should come right after the holes in trash bags. It's certainly much easier then cutting electrical tape, which you need about 30mW more to start to be able to do.

when shooting it at black eletrical tape it just makes small "scratches" and bubbles, but it certainly can't burn through it.

It's suggested you need to have the black tape under stress i.e the roll of tape of the bottom needs to be weighed down. I can burn through a roll of black tape from a few feet if the roll is weighed down - but if it's not under tension I can only smoke and leave lines on it - even from close up.