Casio driver

[Benm]

Perhaps the casio firmware will know when a string oges open circuit, or when one of its diodes short out.

From an electrical viewpoint it is still very difficult to tell a led-ed diode from a functional one though... tolerances are large enough to make that imposssible to detect.

 

[Bionic-Badger]

Perhaps the casio firmware will know when a string oges open circuit, or when one of its diodes short out.

From an electrical viewpoint it is still very difficult to tell a led-ed diode from a functional one though... tolerances are large enough to make that imposssible to detect.

That's what I was thinking, and if you can't even tell electrically if it's blown, it probably won't affect the operation of the other diodes. Of course, that assumes that the laser diode still acts and operates as a diode. I'm not too sure how a blown out laser diode acts after power is maintained (since I usually rip the things out immediately in frustration). I just figured it stayed as an "LED'ed" laser with its reflective facet destroyed.

 

[Benm]

I'm not sure about long time operation either - i've never tried for more than a few minutes until i was completely sure the diode was blown and it was not some driver or battery problem.

That said, i don't see any reason why they would degrede electrically either. The dissipation goes up somewhat because no light comes out anymore (so its optical output is added to the dissipation), but that increase wouldn't be likely to run it so hot a bond wire comes off or something like that.

 

[BShanahan14rulz]

I actually seem to remember that I might have the driver boards for these. They were stacked with inductors and fets, iirc. They looked pretty beefy, too. Instead of copper wire, it was like the cores were wrapped with a copper flattened rod. I kept them, because I thought maybe someday I might understand boost drivers enough to build my own. That day is nowhere near.

 

[HIMNL9]

Very high current inductors ..... "flat wire" is used for this, sometimes, when space is small and currents are high ..... (cause, basically, is the section that give you the current, and square / rectangle sections took less space than round ones, when wrapped in a coil)