Read Hear: Some discoveries of a common 5mw “dollar store” laser pointer. In the video you can see an onboard surface-mount resistor. I measured this with a meter to be 68 ohms. Then I looked at it with a magnifier and on it is 68RO so I guess I was right about that. This seems to be a current limiting resistor, and maby if this is lowered, the laser could work at a lower voltage, maby 3V. Without any power applied to the laser, I looked into the lens, and I could see light comming through from a nearby lamp I have here, so there is basically nothing in there except a very small laster diode that sits on a thin “shelf” of sorts that goes horizontally across, about 1/8 inch or so behind the lens. I finally took the front lens out, its held in position, not by glue, but by a 1/4 inch long spring behind it. This spring has about the same diameter as the lens. The lens seems like some hard plastic, an probably protects the laser diode and modifies the laser lightbeam (makes it thin/narrow?). The actuall laser diode is very small, about 1/32 inch square.