Hi all
I already searched for some answer but here everybody seems to be very advanced and I only need some basic answers, please.
I bought a very cheap red laser pointer, a Chinese key-chain type, about 2 dollars
It is powered by three cell buttons (a total of 4.5 v)
It was working just fine and now it is just very, very dim. You can barely see it.
Probably I damaged it when trying to power it with a battery (NiCd 9.6 volts and a resistor to reduce voltage to 4.5 volts) and perhaps I miscalculated the value of resistor so I delivered more than 4.5 volts to my cheap laser pen.
Could this be a cause? How much these diodes can take?
However, I also own another laser pen, a bit more expensive and more fancy (about 30 dollars) and it sometimes shows erratic response. It sometimes goes dim, and sometimes works fine and it has nothing to do with batteries or terminals getting dirty or such. This is something I had noticed before, this thing works well and sometimes just don't work.
I already tried all of the possible solutions given in the previous thread "laser going dim" but nothing works.
You may ask why bother, just a get another 2 dollars toy and forget about it.
Well, I already bought another one, but my question is with the aim to know what are the causes why a laser works well and then it suddenly goes dim. What are the possible causes? Did I damaged it? From the scientific point of view, what is going wrong?
Thanks all!!
I already searched for some answer but here everybody seems to be very advanced and I only need some basic answers, please.
I bought a very cheap red laser pointer, a Chinese key-chain type, about 2 dollars
It is powered by three cell buttons (a total of 4.5 v)
It was working just fine and now it is just very, very dim. You can barely see it.
Probably I damaged it when trying to power it with a battery (NiCd 9.6 volts and a resistor to reduce voltage to 4.5 volts) and perhaps I miscalculated the value of resistor so I delivered more than 4.5 volts to my cheap laser pen.
Could this be a cause? How much these diodes can take?
However, I also own another laser pen, a bit more expensive and more fancy (about 30 dollars) and it sometimes shows erratic response. It sometimes goes dim, and sometimes works fine and it has nothing to do with batteries or terminals getting dirty or such. This is something I had noticed before, this thing works well and sometimes just don't work.
I already tried all of the possible solutions given in the previous thread "laser going dim" but nothing works.
You may ask why bother, just a get another 2 dollars toy and forget about it.
Well, I already bought another one, but my question is with the aim to know what are the causes why a laser works well and then it suddenly goes dim. What are the possible causes? Did I damaged it? From the scientific point of view, what is going wrong?
Thanks all!!