brtaman said:Nice power now thats a laser hehe
on a side note how is the diode handling the 125ma, I am currently in the waiting process for my parts to arrive and am not exactly positive on the mA i will be running through it. Based on klimbaks experiments (1 month at 90ma no prob...), I am thinking that 95 mA would be pretty good (long-term wise), but it seems the power you are getting at 125 is pretty substantial so I might be increasing my somewhat conservative current value when I am putting the laser together, it seems that these diodes are pretty capable well built and can take much more than was initially thought...?
Thanks
brtaman
I took the same approach as you plan to, starting off at ~90ma and seeing how it does. I want mine to last a long time too and I didn't want to immediately ramp it up to a higher current. I think most things need a little "breaking in" and my theory was that if I "eased" the diode into a higher current level over time it would do better than being cranked up right out of the box.
90ma is nice, it's stable and will give the diode a nice long life. But to me it's like having a car that has a 7000rpm redline and refusing to rev the engine over 5000rpms so it can "have a long life". Well, that's how I feel about the diode. The output is substantially brighter at 125ma, which to me, makes it worth the risk.
I stopped at 125ma because I felt that at that point, it wasn't going to get much brighter and all I would be doing beyond that point would be overheating the little diode. But the brightness increase from 90 to 125ma was so dramatic that I felt it was meant to be up there.
If it fizzles, I'll let everyone know. But I've run it for a minute straight while holding the Aixis module between my fingers, and it hardly heated up at all. Heat is what kills these things and it wasn't getting hot. So I think we're good.