Astral Driver - Buck, Boost, & Buck-Boost

[DrMario]

I have a suspicion that some ICs may be under the EAR importation / exportation restriction. I had to deal with it a few times, a pain in the a**. (Recent one being that I had to sign it for the NXP / Freescale i.MX RT1050 Cortex M7 embedded processor I am going to use in my software-defined oscilloscope because of the cray cray markups on decent portable oscilloscopes.)

Under that restriction, apparently customs can stop the shipment for any reasons until the buyers have released the EAR import paperworks or worse, pay up as much as 50% or more to have it released. Ekk... :scared:

In some case, it can land whoever attempt to ship the laser diode driver - or any electronics - with that proprietary chips to elsewhere on the no-no list, making it almost impossible to buy the additional componenets. (As David Jones, the founder of EEVBlog, found out the hard way.)

 

[paul1598419]

I just realized I have a picoboost driver. It has a low current of 250 mA, so should be able to use it for my 495nm build if it checks out okay. Damn! I had so many things going I had completely forgot about these drivers. :banghead:

 

[jnrpop]

I just realized I have a picoboost driver. It has a low current of 250 mA, so should be able to use it for my 495nm build if it checks out okay. Damn! I had so many things going I had completely forgot about these drivers. :banghead:

Paul, I have a Pico running one of the ~475nm diodes @ 150mA, so far so good. Message Astralist about these drivers, he'l be able to tell you the results he measured and why he didn't continue them.
J

 

[Lifetime17]

Hi, Yea whats going on with astral i sent him some money to cover for shipping on some drivers and never heard back from him in a long time. Is he MIA ?? They were boosts ..

Rich

 

[paul1598419]

Paul, I have a Pico running one of the ~475nm diodes @ 150mA, so far so good. Message Astralist about these drivers, he'l be able to tell you the results he measured and why he didn't continue them.
J

I know about his customs problems. Apparently they were held hostage, probably for more money. That stinks! He has been out of his home area and unable to log onto the LPF, Rich. I don't know when he'll be available again. I did get an email from him about 2 weeks ago, or so. He was still unable at that time to get his new drivers.

 

[DrMario]

If not for the Customs, I would be all over the boost laser driver (Astral drivers being on my list of the laser driver options) - apparently decent switchmode laser diode drivers are getting hard to find and buy here on LPF. For my 450nm blue build, I am currently using a modified AK-101 LED driver (with 1uF multi-layers ceramic capacitor added to the last AMC7135 current regulator chip), as boost drivers are like chicken teeth now.

 

[paul1598419]

Is Jordan still on vacation? I ordered a Nano Boost Driver from him, but may not see it for a very long time.

 

[DrMario]

Yeah... I noticed that. USPS is still awaiting for my package. That or crappy snow storm (Grayson).

 

[paul1598419]

Haven't seen him post except for his vacation thread in a long time. I hope he has drivers for everyone who ordered them.

 

[DrMario]

I wonder how long before I will even see it. (I personally hope it happen sooner as PayPal tend to be strict about ordering policies, I wouldn't want him in trouble at all.)

As for the laser driver, I would personally hope so too, now that laser diode driver shortage is hitting home. HARD.

 

[paul1598419]

Yeah, I ordered two boost drivers on eBay to test. Both turned out to be voltage regulators, not current regulators. Started thinking of building my own. But, to do that, I would have to make them to sell as getting the boards made and populated would be expensive and would only make sense if I had a few hundred made.

 

[DrMario]

Oh yeah, I know what you mean. I was thinking of rolling my own digital oscilloscope basing off NXP i.MX-RT 1050 processor, until I saw the price on the multi-layer PCBs (apparently, no matter how much layers, it still will be crazy expensive for some reasons).

Nevertheless, I am still looking for some PCB houses who will do it cheap without screwing something up (the ADC chip - MAX19506 - I chose is apparently unforgivable of any capacitances and / or inductance leakage, so I have to do it right once since it has frequency block of up to 850 MHz, despite it being a 100 MHz part).

 

[Lifetime17]

Hi,
Jordan is still here and not on Vacation, When he returned he was swamped with orders. My order just left his PO yesterday he was probably busy i made an order for assorted drivers. That was almost 2 weeks ago i think.

Astral we need boosts buddy hope they let loose on your goods soon.



Rich

 

[DrMario]

Jordan is still here and not on Vacation, When he returned he was swamped with orders.

I am relieved. At least I now know what's going on, I suppose I should be a little bit more patient.

 

[Lifetime17]

Hi,
Jordan will come through ..

Rich

 

[paul1598419]

Oh yeah, I know what you mean. I was thinking of rolling my own digital oscilloscope basing off NXP i.MX-RT 1050 processor, until I saw the price on the multi-layer PCBs (apparently, no matter how much layers, it still will be crazy expensive for some reasons).

Nevertheless, I am still looking for some PCB houses who will do it cheap without screwing something up (the ADC chip - MAX19506 - I chose is apparently unforgivable of any capacitances and / or inductance leakage, so I have to do it right once since it has frequency block of up to 850 MHz, despite it being a 100 MHz part).

I remember seeing five layer boards back in the 1980s. They were very unforgiving if met with marginal force. I would think they would have come down in price by now. You'll likely have to go to the Chinese to get it done cheap. Then you may run into problems there.