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Hello all!

Swagga

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Sep 17, 2009
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Greetings

I'm 23 from the UK. These lasers look very cool. After browsing the forums for a while I'm very impressed how how effort goes into all this. Seems that there are some very helpful members of this forum and I haven't seem any flaming so far so I think I will feel comfortable asking any questions. (I'll try not to get too complacent and will make an effort to try and research first ;) )

I'm an electronics technician in the British Army so I know a bit about electronics but I'm not an expert by any stretch of the imagination!

I'm looking at trying to make a decent laser for under $100. I'm not sure what I'll get for this but I'm putting together a shopping list. I'll put it up before I buy anything so I can make sure everything will fit together and function properly.

Looking forward to getting a real James Bond style burning LASER! :D


ps. :thinking: I've noticed a lot of people refering to 'duty cycle'. In my experience this is used with pulse width modulation to define how much of each pulse is set high and low but I get the impression people here mean it's how long you actually have the device turned on for.. Is this correct?

Thanks in advance

Swagga
:horse:
 





Joined
Feb 21, 2008
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Welcome to the forum. You can definitely get into burning lasers here. Don't forget the appropriate eye protection. Yes, we use the term duty cycle here for the amount of time a laser can be on before it needs an amount of time to cool off. We tend to run our diodes CW here rather than pulsing them. (Except in scanners, of course, and some blue 473nm lasers are pulsed)
 
Joined
Jan 18, 2009
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Hey Swagga! Welcome to LPF. This is a great place to learn about DIY lasers. There is a wealth of information to be found here and it looks like you are willing to search for it.

"...and will make an effort to try and research first"

With that attitude you will go far and be much liked.:beer:

Welcome aboard!

TW
 
Joined
Jun 24, 2009
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Welcome sir to this fun hobbyist forum! Your job sounds great! For an electronics enthusiast like me, this must be like a kid in a candy shop!

I myself am just a noob here, but already, i've had excellent recommendations and much help from many of the veterans on this site. You'll probably be able to make yourself a laser very soon, efficiently and inexpensively. If you want the immediacy of glorious laser glow, go to websites like DealExtreme or O-Like and buy one of these inexpensive green laser modules, you hook them up to a CR2 battery and voilà!

Robert
 

Swagga

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Sep 17, 2009
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It can be a very good job! I'm on course at a different unit till late October and have very limited internet usage at this unit so will have to wait a while :(
 
Joined
Jun 30, 2009
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Hey welcome to the forum, it's a fun place with good people. Welcome again. :beer:
 




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