First build, assembled, not turning on

[Hephaestus]

Hey there, thanks for chiming in! Yep, tried with 2 123s I had laying around, no dice. Yeah, it could just be working fine, but it does seem a bit faint. Is there any way else I could test it besides visibility? It can't burn anything whereas with my ebay greenie I can burn dark things.

Thanks!

Amazon ships fast these days!

 

[Hephaestus]

One battery is enough as the voltage requirements are lower than 3.7v. Adding more voltage won't do anything. Personally for me a beam of 500mw of 638 is very hard to see. You might just be one of those people that see violet better than red.

Like you said, the diode itself doesn't require much voltage but sometimes 1 battery is insufficient for both the voltage drops of the diode and driver.

 

[Android]

Amazon ships fast these days!

Haha yep, it's gotta be the drones!

Like you said, the diode itself doesn't require much voltage but sometimes 1 battery is insufficient for both the voltage drops of the diode and driver.

Yeah, I'm not too sure where to go from here, I'll try to head out when the sun goes down to get a better pic at night

 

[Android]

https://imgur.com/a/Mksu8MB

 

[Android]

Essentially pitch black room, something's not right

 

[Anthony P]

I have a nearly identical laser here that is fully functional. The beam in the dark is nothing to write home about. To see it clearly requires smoke or dust or maybe spray a mist of water in the beam path. Adjust focus and shine it on a piece of black electrical tape. It should instantly smoke and quickly pierce the tape.

 

[Android]

I have a nearly identical laser here that is fully functional. The beam in the dark is nothing to write home about. To see it clearly requires smoke or dust or maybe spray a mist of water in the beam path. Adjust focus and shine it on a piece of black electrical tape. It should instantly smoke and quickly pierce the tape.

Yeah, I think something's wrong with mine, here's a pic of it on some electrical tape for a good amount of time, no smoke, no mark. eBay greenie sliced it after.

https://imgur.com/a/9fMperh

 

[Giannis_TDM]

Yeah, I think something's wrong with mine, here's a pic of it on some electrical tape for a good amount of time, no smoke, no mark. eBay greenie sliced it after.

https://imgur.com/a/9fMperh

You might have "zombified" the diode where it still lases but COD has occurred and you are getting nowhere near normal power out

 

[Anthony P]

Saw your picture on the tape. Something is definitely wrong. BTW I am using single 18650 battery.

 

[Hephaestus]

I think Giannis is right here. It's hard to say what killed the diode, but I would try to figure that out before replacing it. Especially if it was the driver that failed.

 

[icecruncher]

For your quick reference, here is an ULTRA cheap red 650 diode at a couple hundred mw with a no brainer AM7135 driver that cost about $10 bucks to assemble. I put this together a few months back. It lights up the entire table when it is on and will easily burn black trim on the table. Look at the glow from laser. This is only being powered by one 10440 battery.

If a Mitsubishi 500mw isn't doing better than this, something is definitely wrong. They are usually very hard to kill with my experience on the 300mw versions I've used. So I would think it either got a jolt of too much voltage or something was assembled wrong and it turned the Laser into a great LED.

 

[Garoq]

If you'd like to send it to me I'd be happy to check it out for you.

-Gary

 

[Android]

An update, thank you all for the help

You'll probably laugh your asses off when you read this, but because I didn't have a vise, I decided to use a rubber mallet to the back half of the module pressing it into place. Now, this did end in success, because I ended up buying a 700mw Oclaro diode in a copper module from DTR. Soldered it, dropped it in, and it worked like a charm. Here's a pic:

https://imgur.com/a/0oDAqAo

Much better! Thank you all for helping me out, I really appreciate it. Looking forward to future builds!

 

[Hephaestus]

An update, thank you all for the help

You'll probably laugh your asses off when you read this, but because I didn't have a vise, I decided to use a rubber mallet to the back half of the module pressing it into place. Now, this did end in success, because I ended up buying a 700mw Oclaro diode in a copper module from DTR. Soldered it, dropped it in, and it worked like a charm. Here's a pic:

https://imgur.com/a/0oDAqAo

Much better! Thank you all for helping me out, I really appreciate it. Looking forward to future builds!

Glad to hear things worked out in the end

 

[icecruncher]

awesome - post a picture of completed laser when you can. Nice to see it seems to be working properly