Have I fried my diode?

[chipdouglas]

lasers diodes are current driven devices, and current hungry. the rectangle 9v batts are 150mah rated... so you see, this wont drive a laser very long until the battery voltage falls out of regulation.

now on to your alakalines.. standard AAA, AA, C, D batts in the store have more than enough current but their voltage is only 1.5v. 405, and 445nm lasers lasing threshold is over 4 volts. So you see, 2 store bought alkalines wont have enough volts to even get the laser to lase.

Ideally you want to use rechargeable lithium ion batts whose volt range is 3.7-4.2v.

there is a recent thread here that goes over the what the basic necessities are for a beginner.

good luck
Michael.

 

[CRenzi]

Hey I found my old laser pointer! And it still works! You can see it in the pic attached.
Guess I fried the others needlessly...

Anyway, the driver configuration is similar to the second one I posted before, a LM 317, two 0.1 uF caps, one 10 uF and two resistors, 8.2 and 1K Ohm. It's driven by a 9V battery though, so there's that.

Now, I'd like to get myself a powerful 405nm laser, and from what I've seen in the B/S/T section getting something around 500 mW will set me back 40-50$. Any particular recommendations?
BTW, i just posted this here for continuity. Please tell me if it's inappropriate.