Mini red diode for less than a dollar hits 31mW

Thought this might be worth posting. After seeing Ricktrent's post about that tiny little red diode I became intrigued with the idea of getting a few myself. I found an auctin at Fleabay and out a bid in for $8 for 10 diodes shipped. I won and yesterday the arrived. My NoSpin Ophir LPM arrived as well so tonight I started testing several of my lasers. I remembered these so I quickly pulled one from the bag and strapped it to a LiPo and it hit 25mW. The second did 18mW, the third a whopping 27mW. The fifth one I pulled just hit 31mW and held steady there for over a minute without a single fluctuation. I turned the Ophir LPM off several minutes and started it back up at 000.0 and once again it went to 31mW and held steady for one minute. I was a bit surprised. They were marketed as <5mW. What's up with that? Think they sent the wrong diodes? They look exactly like the auction picture. Nevertheless I am pleased to have them. They are much better than the ones in a few of my laser gun sights and soon one will be swapped into my Crimson trace. Here is a pic with a penny for size comparison.

It takes more money to regulate a diode to <5mW. They probably just turn the pot til they see it lase and ship it. Remember these are sweat shop diodes

Still, nice source for some cheap diodes.

Yeah, I thought they were nice. Will make some very cool little custom keychain or pocket pointers with them. I was hoping to get at least one real <5mW diode though. My 2 1/2 year old daughter is fascinated by my laser collection so I wanted to make her one that looks like daddy's that couldn't harm her in any way. 17mW is the lowest I've got so far and that's not going to cut it, I want something like 2-3mW just to be extra sure. I may try to see if there is any way to adjust one. Who knows I might be able to get my 2mW or even a solid 40mW too.

Ask AixiZ. They have been a pretty reputable company and they may have something you could get at a good price too.

I just bought some of these yesterday 5 of them for 2 bucks on fleabay... Question did you just power them up Ie no driver or should you put a driver with these

Good power output for something so tiny. That's Chinese technology for you, they are light years ahead of us.

vortish those brass modules like that don't need a driver, its built in.

I got 15 of these from fasttech a while back. @vortish, They are 5v in, dont need a driver.

and yea, there is no way the ones i got are 5mW- connected straight to a 16340 battery, they are really stinkin bright. Would like to get them metered at some point

crazyspaz said:

I got 15 of these from fasttech a while back. @vortish, They are 5v in, dont need a driver.

and yea, there is no way the ones i got are 5mW- connected straight to a 16340 battery, they are really stinkin bright. Would like to get them metered at some point

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Crazy --- I hope we can work past my idiocy... and I bought mine from fleabay i wounder if they are from the same manufacturer.. I know that aixiz carries these and some other usa distributor carry them as well I would like to get mine meters as well and there is a way to do it I guess with a ir thermometer that i found while looking for some thing on LPF I am going to have to get a IR Thermometer and try it

crazyspaz said:

I got 15 of these from fasttech a while back. @vortish, They are 5v in, dont need a driver.

and yea, there is no way the ones i got are 5mW- connected straight to a 16340 battery, they are really stinkin bright. Would like to get them metered at some point

Click to expand...

I used a walwart SM power supply rated at 5v / 300mA, think it was a Motorola cell phone charger at one time. No driver needed, somehow they've out some sort of current limiting contraption in there somewhere, I presume a simple resistor would probably do the trick for these. It's probably a chip SMD type resistor on or inside the little card like appendage sticking out the back of mine. I also hooked it up to various 3.7v LiPo cells, both protected and unprotected. It appears I am getting variance of optical output between different cells and the walwart PSU. This makes me believe there is a simple resistor type of current limiting circuit used as a sort of "driver" but I could be wrong. It makes sense that with more current available to draw, if a resistor is used as the limiting device, you would see this type of variance. With my 18650 unprotected high current drain cell they seem to get a little more output than when connected to a 16340 protected cell and the little walwart PSU. Not much though, maybe a couple mW difference. I didn't write them down but I recall the biggest difference was 3mW on the one I first tested in the 20's.

If you want one of yours tested shoot me a PM and I will give you my mailing address. For the cost of a postage stamp you can have it done. I will even pay return postage! Just drop one into a small greeting card like envelope with a couple extra pieces of paper to pad it and it should easily come under the weight limit for a letter. What, 40 cents these days? I've got a now Ophir that seems to be pretty accurate. Send it if you want, not much to lose really. :angel:

Jmillerdoc said:

It's probably a chip SMD type resistor on or inside the little card like appendage sticking out the back of mine.

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That is exactly what they are. I bought the "speedy technology" 5 pack and they all have a
91Ω resistor. Some of them have the resistor upside down so you can't see what it is. They
are designed to run at 5V, so figuring a 2V drop, 3 / 91 = 33mA. So if you want less output,
just add more resistance or bypass it and use an AixiZ driver.

Hmm I am learning so much on this forum my brain is bleeding from all the knowledge .... Dam it Jim I am a doctor not a laser specialist ... Ask Lighting Stalker.. sorry bad joke

Did you miss my thread? World's smallest red~1mW -and three others all <5mW
PM me you addy Doc and i will gift a few your way comp of Dr Chuck at AixiZ -
they will the the largest of the four- 3 to 5 vdc will run these all day- focusable too.

BRB w/ a link----hak

000000000000000edit

http://laserpointerforums.com/f50/world-s-record-red-88466.html

he only gave me one of the smallest- slightly fatter than a round toothpick(see my pic) I did have a bunch of 5mW 405s the same size as the ones i can send you -also focuable @~5 mw but already gave them all away- still have a bunch of reds- case is pos- the tiny hole at the end of the PCB driver is where to solder the neg leg-

HK

another POSSIBLE solution would be to permently affix a diff. grat. over the end of your 31mW find..- no single beam will be even 1 mW

hakzaw1

I bought proably two dozen of these just to play with oh what fun my cats and neighbors cats are going to go nutz

I got 5 of them at Fasttech for 1.26 dollars...

The ones I have are the Fasttech ones. Module #1 zombified mysteriously on the table, probably from
ESD. It does still put out quite a bit of LED-like light, maybe 500µW. Module #2 does about 5-7mW @
4.8V. You will know when they begin to lase by the emergence of speckle. A grating might also help, but
I haven't tried that yet. :beer: