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I've been working on a laser for several weeks now. LOTS of reading and learning new things... waiting on parts... putting things together... waiting for more parts...
I love it.
So I thought I'd share my experiences with you.
I've had some electronics experience waaaay back in high school, but nothing very spectacular. I know the basics, how to solder (badly), etc. I'm a tinkerer at heart and lasers are right up may alley. So why not build one, right?
I thought that a red laser would be perfect for my first project. The diodes are relatively cheap, which makes it a little less painful if/when you kill one.
So I bought a sled, ordered all the electronic components, and set out to work on my 660nm death ray.
I soldered together a rough LM-317 based DDL driver from this infamous diagram:
Thing went together relatively smoothly and the results can be seen here:
And it worked great. The only problem was that I was not maximizing the full potential of the diode. The max that I could achieve was 241mA, when i was reading that you could drive these diodes at 420mA and even up to 500mA.
I needed more power.
Unfortunately, like I mentioned, I am no electronics wiz, so I only had an idea of what I needed to do to the circuit in order to improve the output.... I had to decrease the resistance.
I ordered a new parts. Enough parts to make several LM-317 based drivers along with an assortment of resistors. I ended up going hog wild on the resistors and got some that were rated for 5 watts (just to be sure, you know?
), and it ended up being overkill because the resistors that I ended up receiving were huge - not at all meant for a compact circuit, but that's ok. This was going to be a labby anyway.
Along with the new parts, I ordered a solderless breadboard to aid me in my quest to build the perfect driver for my LPC-815. I plugged in the components, and after some resistor swapping I found that using two 1 ohm resistors seemed to get me in the neighborhood without exceeding the necessary current by too much. The pot would take care of the rest.
I built in a test load right into the circuit and let her rip. The pot seemed very touchy on the high end of things, but I dialed it in as close as I could and lo and behold, 417mA. Bingo.
I removed the test load portion of the circuit, desoldered my LPC-815 diode from the old driver, and plugged it into the new one.
I powered up the laser but I really didn't notice that much of a difference in power initially just by looking at the brightness of the dot, so I went to find a CD case that I used to test the laser with before and WOAH! The new laser starts the case melting instantly. I was very impressed with the power and surprised at how much hotter the Aixiz module got than it did before.
So that's where I am right now on the build. I found a combination of components that is working nicely (although the actual math still eludes me. Ideally I'd like to have the max current not exceed the LD's capabilities). Now I have to actually solder them together and find a host. I'll update as I go.
I'm hooked. I'm already planning my next build.
I love it.
So I thought I'd share my experiences with you.
I've had some electronics experience waaaay back in high school, but nothing very spectacular. I know the basics, how to solder (badly), etc. I'm a tinkerer at heart and lasers are right up may alley. So why not build one, right?
I thought that a red laser would be perfect for my first project. The diodes are relatively cheap, which makes it a little less painful if/when you kill one.
So I bought a sled, ordered all the electronic components, and set out to work on my 660nm death ray.
I soldered together a rough LM-317 based DDL driver from this infamous diagram:
Thing went together relatively smoothly and the results can be seen here:
And it worked great. The only problem was that I was not maximizing the full potential of the diode. The max that I could achieve was 241mA, when i was reading that you could drive these diodes at 420mA and even up to 500mA.
I needed more power.
Unfortunately, like I mentioned, I am no electronics wiz, so I only had an idea of what I needed to do to the circuit in order to improve the output.... I had to decrease the resistance.
I ordered a new parts. Enough parts to make several LM-317 based drivers along with an assortment of resistors. I ended up going hog wild on the resistors and got some that were rated for 5 watts (just to be sure, you know?
), and it ended up being overkill because the resistors that I ended up receiving were huge - not at all meant for a compact circuit, but that's ok. This was going to be a labby anyway.Along with the new parts, I ordered a solderless breadboard to aid me in my quest to build the perfect driver for my LPC-815. I plugged in the components, and after some resistor swapping I found that using two 1 ohm resistors seemed to get me in the neighborhood without exceeding the necessary current by too much. The pot would take care of the rest.
I built in a test load right into the circuit and let her rip. The pot seemed very touchy on the high end of things, but I dialed it in as close as I could and lo and behold, 417mA. Bingo.
I removed the test load portion of the circuit, desoldered my LPC-815 diode from the old driver, and plugged it into the new one.
I powered up the laser but I really didn't notice that much of a difference in power initially just by looking at the brightness of the dot, so I went to find a CD case that I used to test the laser with before and WOAH! The new laser starts the case melting instantly. I was very impressed with the power and surprised at how much hotter the Aixiz module got than it did before.
So that's where I am right now on the build. I found a combination of components that is working nicely (although the actual math still eludes me. Ideally I'd like to have the max current not exceed the LD's capabilities). Now I have to actually solder them together and find a host. I'll update as I go.
I'm hooked. I'm already planning my next build.
Last edited:
thank you