First build, custom driver advice?

[paul1598419]

If you are going to use this with minimal or no heat sinking, set your driver to its lowest current. Sounds like this will be 1000 mA. Then you can use another pot to vary the output between minimum and maximum. Trying to run this with the external pot should not hurt your diode. In fact, turning it down should only cause it to put out less waste heat.

 

[RedCowboy]

You use the pot on the board to set the driver maximum output between 1000-8000ma then use your attached pot to adjust the output without having to worry about going to far. The thermal protection shown far right can be omitted and you don't need a heat sink for 3a or less, the range is 1 - 8a so you won't be able to get 250ma from this driver AFIK, I would switch the battery anyway, so far I have only used these with a jumper/no external pot, but you can vary between 1000 - 1800ma after you set the max via the onboard pot, it may go lower but I have not tested that, just going by the spec


https://sites.google.com/site/dtrlpf/home/laser-drivers/8a-blackbuck