Drivers question?

Sure, I can post a peek of the testing prototype when I get a chance Monday.

drlava said:

Sure, I can post a peek of the testing prototype when I get a chance Monday.

Click to expand...

Now that I'm in a point in my builds that I feel good about things {soldering, mA checking and what not} I need to find some patience
in waiting for the Lavadrives. LOL! seriously I'm going to order as many as I can untill it hurts :'(.

Ok, here a prototype for the V4 is against an aixiz casing.

^Looks great! can't wait for an opportunity to try one out.. definitely going for a flexmod first, tho...

That looks a lot like one of the chips TI produce - 3 by 3mm, 10 pin? If so, I was going to build a driver very similar to that - I notice you've dropped the second FET/whatever near the output, or is it on the other side? Also, just an idle curiosity, would you ever be providing your driver as a kit at a reduced price? Not that I'd use the kit currently, but if I ever got into building many lasers, the cost saving would really help me.

Hi, nope it's not that chip, this is a current regulated driver.
In the past I have sold kits but when you are using parts this small almost no one has the tools to assemble them properly. Kits just don't make sense for the majority of users, plus it takes time to put a kit together so for those reasons only prebuilt FlexDrives are available from me. Even with the right tools, if you factor in the time it will take you to assemble a kit and the value of that time, for most laser assemblers it makes much more sense to go with the pre-built drivers.

lol...I'd hate to have to solder those components...those capacitors don't even look like they're 0603!

charlie, if you start doing work this small you have to jump into reflow or contract out the PCB assembly to some company that can do the reflow. With that TI chip, it's all QFN with a very fine lead pitch, which makes it near impossible to do it by hand. Whatever chip drlava uses is 2mm x 2mm or maybe even smaller.