Hi from a new guy

Hello everyone!

I live in England am in the middle of a big project for college (im studying mechanical engineering) and I am really short on time.

Ok let me explain: its a penknife - multitool type thing. But awesome. It has a 3" ceramic blade (zirconium oxide - 8.5 moh hardness), a 3.7V 1120mAh Li-Ion Digital Camera battery, an LED (ssc p7- 900 lumens, supposedly quite bright) all housed in an aluminium handle. Or at least it will be when its done.. to finish designing it and thus make the handle on a cnc machine and fit it all in I need the last part in my design: an awesome laser.

This will be my first ever build (hopefully not my last) so I need a bit of help. Ive been having some trouble with this forum: whenever i click on a link it redirects me to the forums homepage. This makes it pretty difficult to get anywhere conclusive. This may well be my fault, and theres something wrong with my connection or im just being noobie, i dont know. BUT i must say this site has been immensely helpful for as much as i have been able to find out, but i still have a couple of questions.

Basically what i know is that i need a power supply with about 7 volts, going to the driver circuit, and the best ones going seem to be the flexdrive or the rckstr, although i have been toying with the idea of making my own. The driver circuit is then connected to the diode.
The parts i think are the best for price are
405nm Violet burning blu-ray laser diode from the PHR-803T
and the Pre-assembled driver, both from modwerx.com.
I sent a message to the guy asking if he could pre set it for me at 100 mA, which i believe is the right current, and fortunately he said he would

this would be connected to the battery i have found here
Canon CA-5L Replacement (NB-5L, NB5L, CA5L) 3.7V 1120mAh Li-Ion Digital Camera battery.
and i guess i would have to amplify the voltage somehow.

So firstly... do i need a module? i thought it was just a fancy heat sink, so i fugured i could just make a heat sink since i have lathes at school and a nice chunk of copper, but then i read something and im not sure now.. does the module have a lense in it? for focusing the laser? that would be bad because i cant fit an aizix module in the handle, so i would either have to find a very small module or it just wouldnt fit. A battery, lighter, torch+heatsink, laser+heatsink, and knife have to fit in a small a space as possible.

also, waterproofing. Im thinking of just sticking a piece of glass in front of it and some rubber stuff around the edges to make it watertight... but im sure there are probably all sorts of technical problems with doing that. right?
I only have 6 week to finish this.. and only 18 hours of machining time. which is far less than it seems since i still have tons to do.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

sorry about the length.. and if this post is in the wrong place.
Ill upload photos when the project is done it might just turn out good. and this is just mark 1.

First off, welcome to the forum.:wave:
It sound like you are in for quite a chalange with your build.
You do need a lens, or else it will look like a bright LED. The Aixiz is the smallest module out there. (that I know of) but you could machine a smaller one but finding a lens would be the hard part.
The Flexdrive is a boost driver, so that takes care of your V problem.
As to making a driver, you can not make one smaller then the Flex without spending big $$$ (using SMT, even then I don't know if it can be done)
Good luck and have fun. Rushing in a project only leads to aggravation.

Thanks alot, thats pretty helpful...
i wasnt going to by the flex since its a bit more expensive.. and im a poor student but i guess i can splash out on the voltage issue.

One more thing: could i just take the part of the aizix with the lense and attatch it that way to the handle? im guessing the bottom part isnt that important and it would solve some size problems. Im going to go ahead and order the flex and the diode...

thanks for the help

Thats an awfull mouth full you said there ! Welcome to the forum :wave:

Welcome to the forum! Yes, you can use just the front part of the aixiz housing. Note that you could just machine your own head, too. Since you have an aixiz, you could measure the diode pocket, and you could use an aixiz lens by cutting the same thread into your own custom head. With only 18 hours of shop time left, time seems to be the constraining factor. Perhaps best in this case to use the aixiz front part. It's not too large. You'll still need room in your project for the laser driver, this often gets hidden in the back half of the aixiz. Perhaps your driver can't be located adjacent to the LD due to layout constraints of your design. Your battery is 3.7V, so you need a flexdrive to power your bluray LD. Sounds like an interesting and challenging project.