Hey, I'm from Australia and have recently 'got into' lasers. Recently I tried to import a 50mw green laser into here, as I've been told the customs rarely catch them. They caught mine. I'm open to ideas to get them past customs, if that's allowed here -- if it isn't, sorry for asking the question. It's only 'laser pointers above 1mw' that are illegal to import here: anything that isn't explicitly a pointer, i.e diodes of any strength, drivers, etc, are fine. I'm thinking that an option is to build my own laser. I'm currently looking at buying the 1W 445nm laser diode, some laser glasses, a housing and everything else that's needed to get a home-made laser to work. I realise that since I have little electronics experience and no laser-making experience, it would be best to start on something smaller, and cheaper. I've found a 100mw 445nm build for about $30 US that I'm willing to try. My question is where I would go to find a little bit of information about doing this before I set off.
Cheers.
Cheers.