445 and AK-007 driver = only 180mW???

[Johnyz]

I finally managed to finish my 445 build. It's a diode from DTR, blue Hotlights host and AK-007 driver from DealExtreme. I had a Ultrafire 18500 battery, so I decided to use it. After throwing everything together, I was kind of surprised that the dot (when safely viewed from afar, duh!) is less bright than my 50mW greenie. It lit matches only when focused, and punched holes thru CD cases only after a long time. I thought it was the battery being weak. Couple of days later my 22600 Ultrafire BRC arrived. The power was pretty much the same. Yesterday, my LaserBee 2.5W USB has arrived (screw customs!!) and it confirmed what i thought. The laser was not 1W, not even .5W. It was only 170mW... What did go wrong? I wanted to keep the modes, so the wiring was like this: driver in+ to battery+; driver in- to case pin (battery-); LD+ to driver out+ and LD- to driver out-. I attached a graph from the LPM (high mode).

 

[chefla]

I read in the drivers section, that the newer batches of the AK007 have issues supplying higher currents. You might want to read for yourself the comment rhd has made here

 

[tomsk]

To here http://laserpointerforums.com/f65/blue-1w-mini-tank007-driver-65748.html