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Back when I was here two or so odd years ago I remember there was a site style called Skilltest: no sidebar or something like that. For those of you who remember that was the only style that didn't look like it'd been hacked up by a three-year-old spastic kid on crack cocaine. The only...

Actually, the reason why is because on those crappy switchmode supplies, the 3.3V and 5V rails are regulated by one component, with the 3.3 often being derived from the 5V rail. It's cheaper to do it that way, and that's why it's done like that. Bear in mind, though, because it's group...

Well, if you look closely, you can see patches of magenta. :P The reason why is because it's been split up, like someone said. The overlaps aren't as noticable. If you'd dichro-combined them beforehand, and made sure they had identical divergence and beam diameters, then you could theoretically...

That element would be sodium. These sodium guide stars, as they're called, are used to measure atmospheric distortion of incoming light. A powerful 589nm laser is used to excite these atoms in the upper atomsphere, causing them to emit light at 589nm. This light is then used to calibrate...

Motor is one of those generic crappy brushed motors that's going through a 6-step gearbox. Final RPM is between 1 and 5 depending on what I have the LM317 set to. It's by no means quiet, though, and before I slapped Vaseline over all the gears it'd also make angry grinding noises. I'll need a...

Sorry if you took that as me being harsh; I didn't mean for it to be that way. Just that the little birdie in the Vets' section thought I might be interested in these 9mm diodes. ;) I didn't think they'd exist so I figured I'd ask first.

The trippybox, as my friends call it, finally lives again. It's far from finished, but it's definitely better than the gaffer-tape-and-old-books setup I had going earlier. "They wonder what's so magical, so enchanting about the light. Words fail to convey meaning that cannot be conveyed through...

Wait, so I went away for a few days. I don't follow. So they're not 9mm? Disappointment. :( Oh, and if they were 9mm diodes, the 808nm modules would have been just fine. The lenses on those modules are replacable. I'd be more concerned by the poor retention (and consequently, heatsinking) of...

A little birdie in a tree whispered to me one frosty morn. The creature delivered tales from a land far away of 445nm diodes (presumably Nichia and/or Osram) being delivered in 3.8mm and 9mm form factors. Said diodes may or may not hit the market en masse soon, too. Of course, there were 445nm...

Those'd be TO220 rectifier diodes. They lack the third pin on the package. Besides, a pair of FETs would handle it easily, and they'd be in parallel too. Also, yes, the risk for internal damage is there. Those cuts look awfully deep.

Oh, I forgot you couldn't paste together double posts in a quote. I also wonder if the edit button works. :whistle: It wasn't one show in particular, instead, it was the fact that all the shows were a series of frames pasted together. No flow, no logic, no nothing. I don't hate graphics. If...

So that's what lasershows have become now- a series of meaningless frames pasted together, with no stream of coherence (pardon the pun) or meaning whatsoever. On a few of them the frames aren't even beat-matched (oh, come on, even a DMX show card can manage better). You could be forgiven if it...

Re: 3A Super Pryoload Driver Test Load First off, nice review. You may want to check your spelling of 'pyro', though. :P Although it certainly is a nice design, I really don't get why the names/IDs of the diodes have been scratched out. I'mean, of course, you have the risks of having others...

The SSY-1 can't possibly be fired at 100Hz. You'll actually melt the lamp (or make it explode in a dramatic fashion). Besides, the recommeded duty cycle for the Q-switched SSY-1 is 120 seconds or so between shots. Any more and you risk damaging cavity optics including the Q-switch, as well as...

All of you seem to have forgotten absorption differences between wavelengths. Example: 300mW of 808 cannot punch through a piece of white paper at all. 300mW of 445 will cause the paper to begin smouldering within seconds. Another example: 150mW of 780 cannot light a white-tipped match 120mW...

Thanks. :yh: As I've said before about KTP and 'throwing photons KTP with a diode for them to shit out a stream of photons out the other end', it isn't a very straightforward process. Finding the correct wavelength is only the start of it. First off, due to a property inherent to KTP, it...

Yes, you'd be right on that one. The Nd:YVO4 crystals, are, as their name suggests, doped with neodymium ions. It is these ions which are responsible for the lasing action that takes place in the Nd:YVO4 crystal. Sorry to say but your standard YVO4 crystals are useless; they won't lase at all...

Of course, at high enough power levels, the air itself becomes the scattering medium, but that's a topic for another day. :crackup:

Forgive me if I've overlooked something, but is the TEC running? I can only see one set of wires going to the diode. Because if it isn't running, a TEC is a damn good insulator. And if that's what's happened, chances are you've already wrecked the diode. Also, for collimation, none of the...

The TTL connection can be folded back into itself (the input voltage). It's not supposed to work, but it does. Bear in mind that the TTL threshold may well be as low as 2 to 3 volts in many drivers, and unlike analog, once it's on, it's on at full power. I've run these off 5V with the TTL...