Red laser - first build help?

I've read through the "I want to build a laser" introductory piece. However, I'm having difficulty understanding what's happening with my current build. I've rated it at ~250mA with a 9v battery and an 815 LPC. The driver is the same DIY build under the intro piece I read. However, when I hook it up, there is a dispersed light, as opposed to a concentrated beam. It seemed to work the first time I tried it, but the second time hooking it up I had off results. Any ideas?? Did I accidentally screw up my diode?

Thanks

Do you have a lens on it??? If you do and it it still doing that, check the glass window on the diode (DONT TOUCH IT ) . If it does not have a lens, you can try a lens to concentrate the beam.

Hope this helped,

Kilter

You have alot more research to do.

I can't quite tell from your description, but it sounds like you may have either LED'd (fried) your diode, or are misunderstanding the way that these lasers function.

Laser diodes themselves don't emit a perfect beam of light, far from it.

They emit a distorted "cone" pattern, more of a flood looking patern.

The only usefull property is that its nearly entirely monochromatic (it will focus perfectly through a lens), and since it originates from the thin junction in the semiconductor (from a macroscopic perspective, a single point) it can be focused with a single lens into a nice beam.

Basically, you need a collimating lens, more specifically you need a housing, like an aixiz module.

I suggest you do some more looking around, people tend to get grumpy explaining the basics.

Oh, I have inserted it into an Aixiz module before I tried it. Still having trouble, though. It's possible I just used the wrong battery. I tried a square 9v, only because it said the accepted voltage was from 6-9v and the battery was tested around 8.45v. However, The time of use was not prolonged. Sorry if this is a dumb question, but is there a recommended power source for these lasers? I heard lithium 3.6v mentioned, but no battery model numbers.

Did you actually build a driver, or are you just using a resistor? And did you put your Aixiz module in a heatsink before turning it on? That little brass module will only keep a laser like that alive for about 5-10 seconds before it burns out (I know from experience ).

Thanks for the replies,

I did build it and tested it with an LED before even hooking up the laser. I did neglect to put a heatsink on it. I may have just blown it (this is sort of a trial and error process for me forgive me if you're face palming away) haha. I didn't leave it on for more than 3 seconds or so. But I suppose timelength is totally subjective to each individual diode.

3 seconds shouldn't overheat the module. Do you have a picture of the setup ?
Now we are all guessing the problem without seeing the problem.

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