Planning first build

Hello all i am new here and planning my first laser build. The goal is to make the lowest price highest power (i know i just want my cake and to eat it too ) red laser i can in a relatively small housing. (i will be mounting the housing into metal casings with thermal paste to act as heatsink... but i want the housing itself to be as small as possible for ascetics)

Right now i am looking at the 6 x 10mm aixiz housing, the aixiz "Constant current laser diode driver 80-500mA w/TTL," and a 20x dvd diode from hightechdealz.

I am looking for recommendations and tips from people with experience. I am all for learning and critique.

My current questions:
What battery combinations do you recommend? I would like to avoid rechargeables for the time being but might include them in the future. (assuming that the build with my current setup is feasible)

What is TTL mentioned in the diode?

...thermal paste to act as heatsink...

Click to expand...

That won't work, let the casing be the heatsink. Thermal paste isn't even good at crossing a 1mm gap. Do you want to make a module or pointer?

The TTL is mentioned in the driver description I assume (unless you open up diodes to read stories from them). It is the modulation type. It uses a signal for 0V or 5V for on and off modulation.

Sorry if my wording was poor, i am planning on using a metal casing and pressing in the laser housing and laser into it. The thermal paste is to try and improve the conductivity between the casing and the housing.

Unless that is what you meant wouldn't work...

My bad TTL was mentioned in the driver description not the diode.

Off to a great start eh? (sarcasm)

I feel this thread is misplaced. I would like to delete this and restart in the red laser category.