Pot mod green laser true?

Hi, I was searching some stuff about lasers because Im new in this stuff and found this How to pot mod your green laser - YouTube
Does it really works? :O I have 5mW laser from ebay but scared to try.

Yes it really works if you want to turn your Laser into
a useless stick...:cryyy:

I would suggest that you do a little research and reading
on the subject on the Forum...


Jerry

Green lasers that are made these days are NOT pot modable. You''l just kill it.

Ok, I understand. So no pot mod for nowadays lasers.

I'm sure TJ will recognise this post, I'm copy and pasting it from the last time I typed it out, haha. Perhaps I should make a new post with it and ask for a sticky...

Pot modding is never a good idea any more. There was a time years ago when green lasers were new on the market and most manufacturers were just churning them out without binning them. Then you could often pot mod a laser safety and get a few mW more out when you happened upon a unit with better efficiency than normal. Those days are long gone. Manufacturers bin their units now - their 1mW, 5mW, 15mW, etc models are all exactly the same inside, they just make one model and sort them by how much power they can squeeze out of it. That is why you can't safely pot mod any more, cheap green pointers are already turned up to the maximum they can take before they leave the retailer. This is part of why they are so much more inexpensive now than they were years ago. Manufacturers get tons of low output ones via the binning process.

Yeah, make sense.

The way I see it is, if you want a laser that will last, dont pot mod. However, if you need more power for a short period of time for some experimentation, go for it, it isnt going to cost you much. With the cost of greenies so low nowadays whats it really matter. Just buy two, pot mod one, and keep the other stock

I have pot modded many over the years for experimentation's sake, and to my surprise, many of them have lasted a lot longer than expected, and some have died quicker than expected.

There is no way of knowing just how long any particular unit will last being over driven. Just buy a hand full and dont sweat it. Thats how you build up a decent supply of parts!!

Hm... I think first time to pot mod I should buy cheap eBay 5mW laser?

I think you should read post #3 again.

When you want your ebay cheapie to stop working, pot mod to your hearts content ;-)

Pot modding won't turn your 5mW pen laser into 500mW beast ! Let's say you manage to turn the pot, would you noticed the difference without the LPM ?
And most 5mW laser are overspec already.

The truth is. Potmodding a greenie is very very risky. It works in some cases if you excactly know what you are doing. You need to know the max current for the specific IR diode in your laser and how sensitive these pots are. A simple touch to the pot may incrase the current by over 100mA which might be to much for the IR diode and kill it.

Without knowing these facts even don´t try to do it.

So like said it´s still possible but not recommended because most of the sold green lasers are already running at their limits.

But it´s not just that. For a higher output your laser also needs higher quality frequency doubling cristals that are able to take more IR and transform it into more green.

For example a cristal set that outputs 50mA max. can be pumped with a lot more IR, but the output will remain at just 50mW. The rest will be transfered into heat and kill your cristals sooner or later.

Without the necessary knowledge and equipment potmodding isn´t worth the effort because a screwdriver and a lot of luck isn´t enough.

Already broke two greenies trying it. Never again.

You really blew the dust off of this thread, last post was almost 4 years ago!

Did you physically break the laser trying to get to the pot or did you fry it?