Pot modding FAQ's

Q. What is a pot? :thinking:
A. A pot (potentiometer) is an adjustable electronic component used to adjust the output current of your driver (sloppy answer, but to the point)

Q. Does my laser have a pot?
A. How am I supposed to know? :yh: But seriously google images "smd potentiometer" and see if your driver has something similar.
or go here http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=smd+potentiometer+images

Q. Will adjusting my pot affect the life of my laser?
A. Yes it will. If you get any life after at all.

Q. Why is there so much hostility towards me/my question.
A. Because you didn't bother using the search button!!!! :wtf:

Q. Will I ever be able to get my <5mw to burn matches by pot modding it?
A. NO!!!!!:tsk:

Q. Will pot modding make my Green DPSS laser more dangerous.
A. Yes it will. By increasing the Green Power, you also increase the IR power.

Q. I made a new post titled "help me pot mod my laser" but i did'nt get any hits or positve feed back?
A. Once again it goes back to you not using the search button first!!!!


edit sept. 9 2009
pot modding is not necessarily a bad thing. but the majority of people searching google wound up here probably do not know much about lasers at all. therefore.... blindly turning the pot is bad!! with out a multi meter and test load it doesn't matter if you your reason is to increase or decrease the power. blindly tuning can and usually will result in diode death. I hope we can all agree on that.


if you guys think of anything else let me know and i will add it.

I think you are sending them to the search button while you don't give answers at all. Tell them in the old times it was posible but nowadays it's hard to find a laser in wich a pot mod reults ina a real increase of power while the 99% will die.

my second q&a makes it pretty clear. this isn't about what lasers come with it. the people asking these questions don't know what they got. I'm not sure what you mean that i am not giving them answers at all? Also my q&a is in present tense, meaning they already have a laser.

Made me chuckle.... but I like it...

(BTW... a pot/potentiometer is an adjustable variable resistor)..

Jerry

I just googled "potentiometer", but my laser doesn't have any kind of volume control on it. Can I still pot mod it?

(joke)

It might be good if you give a little more explanation as to why one can't pot mod most lasers nowadays. (For those of you reading this thread out of serious curiosity, the vast majority of laser pointers available on the open market now are operating at or near the output limit of the laser diode, so putting more power into the diode by adjusting the potentiometer will -- more likely than not -- just burn your laser out.)

Mr_Lazo said:

I just googled "potentiometer", but my laser doesn't have any kind of volume control on it. Can I still pot mod it?

(joke)

It might be good if you give a little more explanation as to why one can't pot mod most lasers nowadays. (For those of you reading this thread out of serious curiosity, the vast majority of laser pointers available on the open market now are operating at or near the output limit of the laser diode, so putting more power into the diode by adjusting the potentiometer will -- more likely than not -- just burn your laser out.)

Click to expand...

I think that that's what he's trying to say...

Jerry

thank you jerry +1 to you.

What if you have used the search button.

Funny when you post "I used the search button already" and as we know it sombody will post USE THE SEARCH BUTTON!!#!@!.

lasersbee said:

I think that that's what he's trying to say...

Jerry

Click to expand...

Yes, but a tad more clarity wouldn't hurt.

Lowest common denominator, remember.

I've got two more for you:

Q: Should I attempt to pot mod my laser?
A: NO!

Q: If I want more power, should I go buy a more powerful laser?
A: YES!

Seriously, though, nice FAQ! More people need to know the truth about pot modding..

thanks fore that FAQ that helping me

Mr_Lazo said:

Yes, but a tad more clarity wouldn't hurt.

Lowest common denominator, remember.

Click to expand...

Agreed... clarity never hurts....:yh:

Jerry

Chip that was kinda funny.
The new form does have a better search and like jerry always said "the search is your friend" and now this is true, un like the old form.

just my $.2 = $.0

I remember what brought me to this site in the first place and that was pot modding my Leadlight glp105. I searched EVERYWHERE for instructions on how to do it and succedded in increasing the power of my laser from 5mw to 75mw (I had one of the rare lasers with the good crystals) I did still kill the laser and have tried pot modding several other models since then with little or no success. So, it's important to understand that this is one of the things that is bringing people here. We need to be nice to them and Kindly discourage them from pot modding their lasers unless they want to kill them. Teach not badger.

I've read that some of the higher end Chinese lasers if there is such a critter
don't pair the crystal w/ their efficiancy in mind rather come up w/diode max output to match the crystal set on hand ...

In either case they always start at for example: a 30mW is going to be a 50mW modded down untill it hits the 30mW mark on the meter... this was the early issue w/
people cycling their greenie for many minutes at a time... AKA death from heat...

correct me if I'm wrong this might have been a issue in regards to replacements from uninformed end users... Have a good day Josh.

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