DX 30 mW green broke on me

[ArRaY]

Today I wanted to shine my romisen L-030 out of my window into the evening sky, but only a very dim green dot appeared at my wall. In about 2 seconds, it faded to nothing. When I look into the aperture with my cellphone cam, I can see, that there is still some IR light.
Not sure If it is coherent light, or just led emission.

Any help is appreciated, what could be wrong?

The only thing that comes to my mind is diode fried.

Thanks,
ArRaY

 

[daguin]

Today I wanted to shine my romisen L-030 out of my window into the evening sky, but only a very dim green dot appeared at my wall. In about 2 seconds, it faded to nothing. When I look into the aperture with my cellphone cam, I can see, that there is still some IR light.
Not sure If it is coherent light, or just led emission.
Any help is appreciated, what could be wrong?
The only thing that comes to my mind is diode fried.
Thanks,
ArRaY

Always start with the least expensive fix. Have you changed or charged the batteries?

Peace,
dave

 

[mega]

My little laser pointer does that ALL the time. I give it a new set of batteries and I'm good to go, for a minute... than I need another set of fresh batteries .
Check your batteries first, that is most likely the problem.

 

[ArRaY]

Wasn´t be able to answer yesterday, but that was of course the first thing I´ve tried. I tried 3 different, fully charged rcr123a batterys.
Same results with every single one.

ArRaY

 

[diachi]

Is it mode hopping perhaps? Mines does that when it mode hops ( But it only mode hops cause I messed with the pot [smiley=evil.gif]).

 

[frogger]

Mine is doing something similar, i have tried new batteries, never messed with the pot.
It will work sometimes for weeks at a time, then it will shut off and not work for a day or two, then it'll start working again.
I'm about to just give up on it and either buy a new green module (i think the diode is dying) or gut it and make a blu-ray.

 

[daguin]

Mine is doing something similar, i have tried new batteries, never messed with the pot.
It will work sometimes for weeks at a time, then it will shut off and not work for a day or two, then it'll start working again.
I'm about to just give up on it and either buy a new green module (i think the diode is dying) or gut it and make a blu-ray.

If it works sometimes and not others, it is a bad connection.  Diodes and crystals do NOT "come and go."  Maybe the "filler" under your driver board has compressed (or it never had any) to the point that the driver is moving.  Check to make sure the driver is supported.  Maybe the battery contacts have become oxidized (or something else got on one of them).  Try cleaning up the contact points or adding some "spacer" material (foil, rare earth magnet, etc.) to increase the strength of the contact.

You might try these things as well ArRay

Peace,
dave

 

[frogger]

Well, i just did a litle testing and it seems that something on the driver is making contact with a spring looking thing on the side of the tube, it looks like it may be a spacer of some sort, would there be anything wrong with just taking that thing out?
I can try to get pictures if it would help.

 

[diachi]

That is just a spacer, though mines doesn't work *as well* when I take it out, but you can try removing it if you want, just keep a hold of it .

 

[ArRaY]

Thanks for you advice, but I already sorted out all kinds of bad connections and cleaned the threads and everything else thath could prevent a higher current flow. The connections are all very good and the board is rock steady. It does not light up green at all. However, I can see the Ir output, but it looks like an led, it does not saturate the cam in any way, i can look down into the diode. I think I could be able to measure the amps, as there is a 1r0 red resistor on the driver, but I will try that tomorrow, because It is not very easy to do that with the barrel opend up in my desk.

Diachi, could you measure the mA draw of your romisen l-030 lasers? Would be very kind of(from?) you...

Even If I somehow killed the diode, It would be sad but not the end of the world since the laser did only cost me about 16 [ch8364]...

Thanks, ArRaY

 

[frogger]

sorry to threadjack this a little, but upon closer inspection, there is a TINY bit of the corner missing off the driver, and i am thinking that now the solder can connect with something in teh case and short something out or something like that. I don't know how to fix it, i can't get anything tiny enough to cover it up. I may be able to et a picture of it, but i dunno.
Any ideas? Could that be causing my problem?

 

[diachi]

@ ArRaY : I'll try measure the current for you, that is if I can get my multi-meter working, it's a new one that a got for £4.99 and it doesn't seem to work, I'll let you know if I get anything.

@ frogger: could you take a picture of it please?

 

[diachi]

Okay ArRaY,

Mines ( Well my dads ) draws 310mA at 3-3.55V ( Never pushed it further than 3.5V, since it isn't mines, though they can take over 4.2V ) It seems that the current draw seems constant from 3V-3.5V So I'm guessing if you were using a fully charged unprotected RCR123 ( around 4.2V ) then it would still draw 310mA .

Hope this information helps.

-Adam

 

[ArRaY]

Thanks.

How did you measure that? ;D
I couldn´t measure mine, because I didn´t know how to connect the DMM while the module is in the laser.
Do you understand what I mean? I couldn´t stick it in series because I wasn´t able to screw the tailcap open :


ArRaY

 

[diachi]

Just screw the head apart, the whole laser unscrews into sections , thats why I like it so much.

Although, it doesn't make a difference to me, since I have a great PSU that tells me current draw and voltage on its digital screens, and my DMM only has a 200mA fuse anyway so that would have broken :.

If you want pictures of the disassembled pointer tell me and I'll post them for you

-Adam

 

[frogger]

Sure, You should be able to see what i'm talking about and more.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/jgmm8g