laser module?

i found something called a laser module that looks like what i think i need, it just had red and black leads on it, can i assume all i need is a 3v battery pack to use this or is there more to it? i know nothing about these (or anything else for that matter) so any advice would be helpful...im using a green pointer now but it kinda sucks for what im trying to do

More info.

What ARE you trying to do? what module are you referring to?

im trying to make a small portable vortex machine , the pointer im using now is kinda too long ,has no on/ off switch, and short battery life, (AAA).....the modules were at instaspark, 2 for 69.00, i just wasnt sure what else they took to work, or if they need a housing or anything...i need to make 3 or 4 of these things cause everyone that saw it on halloween went crazy over it...they are quite impressive in the graveyard scene.

Sounds like you got yourself a pair of modules - aka laser diode with driverboard built in. Try supplying 3vdc to one of them. if it blows up, you know they are bare diodes.

Short of taking one apart and looking inside, this is the only way I can suggest you fire one up. Blowing one up because it doesnt have a driver board, is the same as wrecking one coz you pulled it apart and wrenched the diode leads out of the diode getting it apart.

now im confused...

It made sense to me @ $35 a piece I would guess they have a driver fitted.... are we talking red or green (expensive for <5mw red.....not too bad for 5mw green).

I tend to buy the cheap DX greenies and shorten them to fit small spaces, tie down the push button with a tiewrap, good value at $17

regards rog8811

that is a good deal...how do you shorten it ?

give us a picture of it

Firstly saw the battery holder off just behind the silver coloured band,it will become a screw in cap. I used a flanged plastic plug I found in my scrap box as my insulator and a brass washer to solder the negative (black) wire to.
I drilled through the side of the insulator, passed the pos (red) wire through and soldered to the cut face of the screw in cap.
I potted the wires into the insulator to give them support.

I hope the picture makes it clear.

Regards rog8811

thats exactly what im wanting to do... think i'll click over and order a couple of those $17.00
cheepies, i paid 40 for the one i got so i kinda hate to saw it up, it dont come apart in the middle anyway, has a little cap on the end....i'll just sell it and get the others...
THANKS FOR THE PIC!!!

I wanted a self contained, portable vortex that could be run off battery power or a wall wart... Here's what I did, and I'm really pleased with the results...

I took one of those $17.00 DX greenies and cut off the skin with a Dremel cutting wheel, leaving just the diode and driver (~2 inches total). Then I soldered a jumper wire shorting the on button (so it's always on), and wired it up to a 3 volt regulator from Radio Shack (so it could be run off any voltage wall wart or battery). Then I wired up another voltage regulator to control the speed of a little fan I found in my computer junk box (to which I glued a mirror) from the same power source.

Then I put all that crap in a little project box from Radio Shack. The laser mounted in the bottom, pointing up at the fan/mirror thingy. Then I just cut a little hole in the front of the box to let the vortex out.

It's really small and portable, and it wasn't near as complex as it might have sounded in the description above (It took me a couple of hours -- but I don't know jack about electronics or soldering). If your interested I could post some pics or maybe even crank out an instructable.

Pictures are always good   as you are short on posts at the moment, (you need 10 posts to post links) put a link to the pictures in your post with a couple of spaces in it. With a bit of luck a moderator will come along and fix it for you.

Look forward to seeing them....Oh and welcome to the forum

Regards rog8811

*Edit  On some of my builds I have done something similar to you, soldering straight to the driver board.  For the liquid sky I did it as described so that I can take out the 10mw to use it as a pointer again....and replace it with a higher power one again, without modding.

that sounds like what i want to do...never tried to solder resistors or anything but ready to try....any help or pics would be appreciated....

budule -

Take a peek at the experiments and mods section....LOTS of different modifications going on by members of the forum...some pretty damned clever pieces of work, too ! Spend lots of TIME before it costs lots of MONEY....Read first, then buy stuff to play with - you will end up spending a LOT less that way

you will end up spending a LOT less that way

Click to expand...

That has not been my experience.....I just come up with more things to build

But! the important part of what Senkat said is

Spend lots of TIME before it costs lots of MONEY

Click to expand...

I have a number of working projects that would have failed if I had built them without first doing the research.

Regards rog8811