Recent content by smana

Since the diode is very inefficient but the current IN and OUT is identical, is the voltage drop across the diode the main indicator of its inefficiency (in addition to heat produced by the diode)? I ask this because I expected an inefficient device/diode would show the current OUT to be LESS...

X-Wossee sent another message via ebay today: "I'm sorry you can't get drivers the easy way :( I hope that in 2023 our bosses will finish dividing spheres of influence and we will return to a more or less usual course of things (doubtful). As for LPF members if anyone is curious, I'm available...

RedCowboy - once again, you have helped me tremendously! Thank you for clearing that up!

The clamp is around the black lead coming off the diode in the photo. Shouldn't it be around the red lead? Or maybe it doesn't matter? It's just that in the Barnett schematic diagram using a non-clamp ammeter, the ammeter is connected to the red lead coming off the diode. So, I thought...

yes, a gun has a blunt tip, and a bit bulky for fine work. I have a small soldering iron but with a flat tip - I may sharpen it to a point or get a sharp point.

ok, thank you. So the soldering gun tip should be on top of, or touching, the tinned lead, not the pad. This way the tinned lead heats up the pad, not the soldering gun tip. I currently use Kester "44" resin core solder: Sn63, 44 Resin for all of my projects.

hello, Driver sellers and designers encourage using the least amount of heat as necessary, to solder leads to their drivers. Some even say 1 second is all that we should use when touching the soldering iron tip to the pad on the driver. So, here are some givens: 1) pre-tinning the leads 2)...

X-wossee (Vlad) sent this message via ebay today: "Hello, As you may have guessed, I've put eBay on hold since my usual payment methods don't work for me now. There are other reasons as well. Drivers are being produced but I can't say when they will be available for European overseas." I let...

21.15W into the diode and 6.6W of light out the diode. So, 6.6W / 21.15W = 0.31 or 31% efficiency for the diode turning electrical energy into light energy? Heavens. Thanks for the info!

RedCowboy - thank you for the info and numbers ! (and this is why there is such an emphasis on proper heatsinking on this forum, lol).

Thank you for the info Red Cowboy! I was just looking at those clamp meters, lol. Since the NUBM44 runs nominally at 6W to 7W of light output while the driver is outputting 20W, this shows how inefficient laser diodes tend to be? If so, that's a big hit in efficiency rating for the laser...

Red Cowboy also gave this link for those who want to use a ready-made adjustable test load: https://www.survivallaser.com/20A_Heavy_Duty_Selectable_Test_Load/p556088_14651126.aspx

Excellent! Thank you for the schematic ! Very helpful. So I guess you also disconnect the positive leg of the diode (if its already connected). So if the positive laser diode lead has not been soldered yet, a regular multimeter can be used. Once the diode leads are soldered and finished, a...

The leads from the driver to diode will be rather long (at least 3 inches) due to the host setup. As for having to de-solder one leg of a diode, wouldn't it be possible to simply contact the meter test leads to the solder joints?

I want to adjust the driver's on-board potentiometer with the laser diode already connected - i.e. no test load. Do most of you simply turn the potentiometer screw a very small amount, turn the power on, measure the current, turn the power off, and continue this process over and over until the...