conundrum

Guys:



I have a small conundrum. I have around 30 dollars to spend on laser related stuff.. I mean diodes,drivers, batteries, and the like. No hosts of manufacture from sellers from lpf as they would take most of my budget sorry guys.. what i am looking for is getting the most out of what i have to buy stuff any advice would be appreciated. I been looking at stuff for a few hours and having a hard time choosing maybe you all can help me out..

thanks

Make a DIY driver, lathe your own heat sink, find a diode in an old DVD burner ect. Just do as much as you can yourself. If you're unable to then just wait and save up a little.

BC that is good advice but i can get diodes from ebay for cheap and drivers to I have a buddy that is sending me 20 dvd rw drives and I think he mentioned one or two of them are blue ray I just have to send him the money to ship them. I know that this hobby is not cheap but i am right now building up my stock pile once that is done then i will save up and get some of the higher priced items... but I really am not in it persay as strictly a hobby I am also in it for knowledge and friendship

I am going to work on a lm317 driver test set up for testing diodes that i get out of burners. I have some thing around thirty lm317 i just got my prototype boards and i have resistors and caps and going to put it together here in a bit

the advice is out of the cheap diodes what is a good one. drivers just have to find which one suits each case or diode right and your right as far as the pen pal thing but it is still a friendship never the less

I pretty much agree with ARG's sentiments--without spending a lot you can do quite a bit if you are willing to put in the time and effort.

However, with only $30 to spend I would suggest that you save your money.
Make a plan.
Figure out what you want or need and then buy everything needed at same time when you can.

Outside of that a small complete laser like the O-Like, New Special Cute 50mW 532nm for about $20 + shipping--is pretty nice for that amount-- New Special Cute Burning 50mW green laser torch/focusable/ [OL-CG-50] - $19.50 : Zen Cart!, The Art of E-commerce

im looking at a pair of 80 mw 405 for ten bucks a 300 mw 650 nm fot 7 a driver for each and some wire 22 silicon for 5