How to power this RGB laser?

Removed

Its a dual supply rail. +15v and -15v. The red is positive and blue is negative. Just buy a 20v AC transformer with C tap,use 7815 and 7915 regulators and you should be good to go. I would like some more "higher" definition photos of the traces on the pcb. So we dont make a mistake

You still need help

9V batteries are incapable of supplying the current needed, which is most likely why the green does not perform well. You need a proper power supply for it, batteries will not cut it.

you dont seem to understand what lasers are,and how they work. Do a bit of research before attempting to power the unit again. 9v is capable of delivering about 100mAh which is WAY to low for a laser diode of 1w to work. Usually 1w diodes have a operating current of 1A(1000mA). So you get the picture. Oh,and yeah,dont try and guess what is the output power of the laser! you can only know if you have a laser pointer meter. If you want to run your unit,get a Center Tap transformer of lets say 2A make a linear regulator with the 7815 and 7915. If you dont have any knowledge about electronics,i dont recommend you to play with lasers.

What Aleksa is trying to say is that it isn't going to be as simple as wiring up a couple batteries and a switch. The info he presented is correct though and answers why batteries won't work (at least not without resorting to very expensive and dangerous lithium or lead-acid arrays) There's no easy way to power this, and while his reply comes off as perhaps rude (I don't think so but I can understand how it would), he's really just trying to protect you. The laser you have CAN BLIND YOU PERMANENTLY WITH EASE.

I don't think you're going to find an off the shelf dual rail (+15V and -15V) regulated supply capable of powering this laser, which means you'll have to either make one, or have someone make one for you. One can be made by making a circuit with a special transformer, several diodes, 2 ICs, and several capacitors, but if you have no experience with building electronics circuits from scratch it will be very difficult if not near-impossible to do.

I wish I had a more palatable answer for you, but the truth is you didn't buy a very beginner friendly laser. High resolution clear photos with good lighting and all the details in focus will help if you want to proceed forward.

sorry if you got that impression
no hard feelings
you just need to understand that lasers are very dangerous...that's all.
And yes,they are power separately. I know my stuff man,don't doubt that
I don't have so much experience with low power lasers,just with high power ones.
So... Its 3 puppy's in one module. If each one is 1W (it might be that one is 330mW) you will need 3A of input current. You can always use battery's just the big ones
If you take 2 battery's of 12-15v couple of amps,and connect them in series (+ - + -)
you will have a positive ground negative. You can hook up all three diodes on one battery...only if it has the current. The sockets have one pin (+ or -) and the other pin is ground.Same for all three diodes. Whats your opinion on that ?

They are not all 1w nor 330mW. The green is supposedly 100mW, red = 300mW, blue = 600mW. I've gotten the red and blue to work just fine using batteries. I just am not sure why the green isn't working.

A 100mW green uses a ~700mW IR 808nm diode to pump the crystal set, which will draw at least 500mA.

A rough guideline for overall current needed for all three at once would be about 1.5A to ensure proper regulation.

I am sorry but there is no nicer way to say this; you're over your head here and you've clearly demonstrated you don't understand basic electronics principles. If you want help then stop arguing with the info presented just because you don't like the answer you were given. I understand you might be feeling buyer's remorse, but there is nothing to support that you received a bad product.

Yeap...that's pretty much it. Btw, Thank you Sigurthr
English is not my country language,so i might sound weird. Didn't intend to be rude

Which particular laser did you buy? The power supply on that doesn't look like any of the ones in the photos of other RGB lasers Newgazer sells. It also looks like you photographed that in a mirror right? That says -12V+, not -15V+ if I'm not mistaken. The red jacks are the power jacks, and the blue are the modulation (on/off).

You need to provide each laser driver's power supply (red terminals) just 12V -- not the +/- 15V Aleksa mentioned. The modulation inputs (blue terminals) need about 5V (usually as little as 3V) to turn on each of the lasers. Those 9V batteries won't do it because they're literally constructed from 6x AAAA batteries (4A) in series. They can't provide much current and are only good for stuff like smoke alarms. You're also undervolting the power supplies by about 3V, which reduces the output power as well.

If you're serious about trying to power up your laser, what you need to do is find a 12V power supply that can provide a decent amount of current. You can get something like this to provide 12V and enough current. That power supply in particular has a nice screw terminal jack for attaching wires to. If you don't want a power supply like that, you can sometimes find large 6V primary cells at electronic stores and string them together for 12V. You can also use RC battery packs. You just need 12V and batteries that can supply enough current.

It looks like the wires they provided you have plugs on each end. For this you'll need to have a plug on one end that you plug into the board of your laser, and exposed wires at the end. You'll need some wire strippers for that. If you don't have any, you really ought to learn some basic electronics/soldering skills before potentially damaging your $230 laser.

Assuming you can get your wires stripped and such, you should first plug in the three modulation cords into the blue sockets, and make sure each respective pair of wires is connected together (shorted). This ensures that your laser are "off."

For power, first make sure your power supply is unplugged. You now plug in each of the power wired connectors that came with your laser to the red terminals each laser's power supply. Then you wire the + side of each of the power connectors to the + of the power supply jack. Likewise, the same with the - wires. It'd be best if you could solder these wires together instead of just twisting them together. You can probably fit each bundle of wires into the screw terminals though.

For the modulation inputs keep them shorted (connected) until you're ready to fire the laser. Make sure that your laser is firmly mounted, and the output of the laser is aiming at a non-reflective surface. Goggles would be good here, but your RGB laser has all the colors of the rainbow. It's more important to be prepared and be careful about what you're doing.

When you're ready to fire the laser, connect power and then disconnect the two modulation wires. This may cause the lasers to light up because the voltage will "float" above the threshold value. If not, you need to put about 3-5V between the + and - leads of the modulation inputs.

Make sure to take more pictures if you're stuck. Also if you don't understand anything above, you need to go learn more electronics. Then you can get stuff like this working.

Hah,you are right B-B! The red socket is just +- 15v and the blue one is modulation. All dough it is 15v,not 12v. So you just need 15v. A big battery or a wall adpater(must have at least 1A) and that should be it.

No, it's definitely 12V. Here's the zoomed image. It wasn't in a mirror, just upside-down.



As you said, that 1A should be enough though. It'll drive the lasers and their fans. The board might even be able to take 15V, but sticking with 12V would probably be best, and it's more common anyway.

I haven't seen those RGB lasers use that particular circuit layout. Usually they're all on a single board with a single power input and modulation inputs for each channel. It looks like they just fixed three separate boards together. Maybe they needed that for the extra power.

well look at that
my mistake!
Thank you for flipping the image

I powered the laser using three 16340 batteries. The red laser functioned, and the blue laser did something VERY strange.

The first time I powered the blue laser (with the 9vs) it was a proper laser beam. This time, I powered it with 16340s, and it shifted from its usual indigo color all the way to cyan. The spot was also much larger than usual. I was able to do this a few times, and then it strangely stopped working.

The green laser did not function at all, although the fan worked.

lets deal with the blue one first. No output at all ?