Defective Driver?

Hey guys, i was wondering if you could help me determine if the driver I use is defective.

Story:

I bought 3 laser diodes from diy-lasers.com and they sent me 5 and charged me for the 3 then I bought a little 4 dollar driver. So there was a chance that there could be problems. Anyway I pressed the diode in the aixiz housing and when i tried to determine the current of driver with a crappy homemade dummy load(it did work on a "once to be" green laser's driver). I got nothing on my multimeter. So I tried messing with it but still no results. Then, out of the idea that i'll have 4 diodes left i soldered it on. Then I turned the power on and no LED... but very dim. So i cranked the pot up and then it flashed brightly then... poof LED'ed.:crackup: So then took the now LED out of the housing and did the stuff said above up until the driver part. This time I kept the pot all the down until it stoppped then I went probing. The laser diode flashed extremely bright and made me see spots for 5 minutes. I dropped the screw driver making me loose my probing spot. This time with the lens on, I probed around for the same spot... found it. I had to bridge the 7 and 8 pin on the IC. Still no LED up till now. :beer: I power it with 2 AA's


Driver: http://www.diy-lasers.com/product.php?id_product=19
LD: http://www.diy-lasers.com/product.php?id_product=13

sorry for the long story but it is what it is lol

For one thing, don't EVER look directly into a laser diode! You could have damaged your vision
permanently.

Set up a dull white object 6" from the output and make sure there is no way the diode can turn around on
you and point at your face. You can then safely view the reflection from the white object up to about
500mW. It has to be dull or matte to reduce reflections.

Those are a good driver, I have used them, they just have their limitations. For one thing, they are
continuous positive and when driving a case negative diode (like yours), the heatsink has to be electrically
isolated from the host. For another, the TTL input has to be connected to V+ if you aren't using it. I think
this may be your problem. Then when you overturn the pot, it turns on hard and blows the diode.

Just give it some time and think about it for a while and you will get it figured out. You had the right to use
a test load.

so here is my setup and by the looks of it, it doesn't seem like its going to work.

i salvage the laser 301 host and put the driver and aixiz in the 301 then i used the case as negative (I also assume bridging the 7 & 8 pins was not a good idea) then the positive of the driver is connected to the positive of the driver.

so see if this checks out and also I have never seen TTL solder pad. Do i have to connect the VCC to the solder pad on the other side of the driver as well, from what you said, then the pot should be effective right! :bowdown:

if this is it.... Thanks you just save a diode! this would've been helpful on the website and im also down to 1 spare

EDIT: just looked at the driver for soldering mistakes and noticed that the connections that are circled in red are connected and not connected in the product picture im not sure if this is intentional though