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There is no real regulation when it comes to product claims in China and that means that many will claim that the laser in question is incredibly high. To put it simply these are flat-out lies. Nowadays there are literally tons of Chinese companies and manufacturers offering lasers supposedly up to 10,000mW or even higher. If its a pen running on AAA batteries it more than likely will not be a high-power burning laser. So be sure to check out the body and battery of any individual unit.
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Larger units that use rechargeable batteries make up almost all of the lasers classified as burning.
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Many of them are low in power around 5mW and that means they’ll be visible and useful but won’t be able to light a match or pop a balloon. As a rule, AAA battery-powered pen or keychain lasers are almost never considered burning lasers. So now that we know we need a minimum of 100mW and the higher the power the better for burning ability, we’ll need to look at the different types of lasers. You’ll need 500mW or above to really get the max burning ability, and always the higher the power the better for distance and burning. The higher the mW power the greater the burning ability, so if a 100mW can just pop a black balloon and light a match, it will not be able to cut through the electrical tape. Any laser above 100mW will be considered a burning unit, BUT, not all are created equal. That means that any laser below 100mW will be hard-pressed to burn anything and will flat out not be able to. So that means knowing where the burning threshold is and that threshold is at a minimum of 100mW as a general rule. Now, today lasers can go from less than 5mW all the way up to 5,000mW or 5W. This is the most important factor (not the beam color) when it comes to determining whether or not an individual laser is a burning unit.
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