Jim, I'm not familiar with that particular 200mW laser, but my 100mW takes one CR123A lithium 3 volt cell, at $6 to $8 apiece, depending on where I buy them. But I'm still using the same battery that I put in there when I first got it, and I've used it often since. Mine is about the size and diameter of a typical hot-dog frank; not "pen" sized. It came with a print-out of it's actual performance, and actually has a mean output of 112mW, with a stability of 1.87% for the 20 second test duration. The duty cycle for a high-powered diode laser is pretty short. I can only leave mine on continuously for 120 seconds before I have to turn it off and let it cool down for a couple of minutes. If I limit the on-cycle to less than 30 seconds, then it doesn't heat up and can be used with a shorter cool-down cycle. I have yet to see a green laser with a beam bright enough to be used as a star-pointer that is rated for continuous duty (no cool-down cycle required). The higher the power, the shorter the duty cycle. That helps save on the battery use. On Fri, Feb 6, 2009 at 4:46 AM, Jim Gibson <jimgibson00@yahoo.com> wrote:
Hey Chuck How many batteries per minute does the 200 mw take?
Jim