Again, though, you forget that this IC is made for driving LED'S, not laser diodes.
That doesn't change the schematic / circuit layout, nor the reality that the circuit HAS an output capacitor (it's just not the one bridging L+/-, which is, as others have pointed out, not really called for).
The reason people are getting upset is quite obvious, because YOUR driver is killing their diodes for unexplained reasons. Can you blame them for attempting to figure out why?
Not MY driver, and not BEN's driver either. I've never sold these drivers to anyone on the forum. Though I've given a few away to some vets who tested them (including on 12x diodes), to positive results. I've also used them on those same diodes that Ryan and a few other beginner builders were complaining about, without any trouble.
When Moh decided not to build all of his boards, he sold the PCBs to a lot of different people, including members with no experience actually reflowing boards. Again, a lot of very new people grabbed some of these boards. I didn't read that other thread carefully enough to see where the boards in question came from, and I'd prefer not to - so that I can make this general comment without anyone thinking I'm singling them out personally. Put some consideration into who reflowed the boards in question, as well as the user reporting the problem itself.
Don't be bashing on members because they're having problems. I understand there are elements of quality control that need be understood, but if multiple members are having issues there is quite obviously something wrong.
Raise your hand if you've ever killed a diode with a DDL driver:
* Multiple hands go up *
Multiple people kill diodes with every driver that gets used in any sort of wide distribution. You have to keep in mind that Moh made 1,300 Ben Boost PCBs, some of which he assembled and sold, others he passed along as PCBs and others reflowed and sold, etc etc etc. A lot of people have purchased and used Ben Boost drivers. A lot of people WILL kill diodes with them. A lot of people who HAVE killed diodes with the Ben Boost are relatively new builders.
Datasheet current on a PL450 calls for a max of like 165mA. Some members were complaining that their Ben Boost driven diodes died when the drivers were set to "just" 380mA. Why? Because other PL450s that they (or others) had tested were able to handle 400mA.
To a really novice enthusiast, that logic might make sense. But it's logic that is divorced from the reality of this hobby, where diodes die at vastly different currents from each other, especially when being run at 2 and 2.5x the datasheet current (which is among the highest departures from datasheet specs I've seen for any diodes - awesome, but risky).
Do you even own an oscilloscope RHD? How did you test the driver for spikes?
Did you test them out with 12x blu-ray diodes?
Yep, and nope (just on 445s). Though I think the spikes (if there had been any) would have shown up when the driver was used on a 445, even if 445s were better able to handle them.
Granted, the Ben Boost is about the ONLY thing I've actually used my scope for, and I'm not a scope-using expert. But it (driving a 445) was the first thing I tested when I got my scope, and the output looked clean to my eye.
There's room for someone with a better analog scope to jump in here and confirm, but I think you'll find that there's nothing wrong with the drivers (or more accurately, with the driver design). If anyone wants to tackle a scoping, PM me so that I can send you one of the drivers that I've reflowed myself (or grab one from Ben if he has some on hand), as opposed to testing one of the randomly reflowed versions out there.
So again, don't forget that beginners like Ryan kill diodes all the time. That's not "bashing", that's just reality. This is a "death heavy" hobby, particularly when users are only a few months in to learning how to pull off builds (but even after that). It's frankly not "bashing" to suggest that new builders burn diodes. That's just "recognizing reality".
Keep that other thread in context. I skimmed it, and I saw a bunch of members with a few months of presence here, and not very much rep, and without (to be fair) a history of builds, complaining about dead diodes. Some vets (like DTR, TJ, Wannaburn, etc) jumped in and tried to help, but they weren't the users reporting the actual problems (from what I read, though I might have missed someone - apologies if so).
