Help with Daedal's Driver

[rog8811]

Once you have tested this and found that it all works ok make sure you wind up the pot to max resistance and short out any capacitors to discharge them (with no power appied ) before connecting your LD.

Regards rog8811

 

[desslok]

Once you have tested this and found that it all works ok make sure you wind up the pot to max resistance and short out any capacitors to discharge them (with no power appied ) before connecting your LD.

Regards rog8811

In regards to the pot, I am a little unsure how those work. There doesnt seem to be a stop point anywhere. It is a 25 turn according to package. If I keep turning it, it seems like it will just keep turning forever, wither way. It will get to a point where it reads 0 ohm. I then have to find where it starts reading from 1-100 ohm and dial it in. Is that the way it's supposed to be?

 

[rog8811]

If you listen very carefully you can usually hear a very faint click as you reach either end of the travel....measuring with the DVM will make sure though. I always go a couple of turns off maximum, it is not unknown for the pot to go open circuit at the very end.

Regards rog8811

 

[desslok]

OK, so it looks like when I undid a couple connections in the circuit to try and pack it into the flashlight, when I hoooked it back up I wired up the 317 wrong. It was basically spitting out ~420 mA and adjusting the pot had very little effect. Trying to trace the circuit with the components in a "hairball" is harder than it seems. I fixed the connection and now it adjusts really smooth and I brought it down to 85 mA, using the 4 diodes and a 1 ohm resistor in series. Before I hook up the LD, I'll turn it down some more and discharge the caps. Thanks all for the help! I feel like I know 100 times more about lasers and electronics than I did before I joined this forum!

 

[a_pyro_is]

Thanks all for the help! I feel like I know 100 times more about lasers and electronics than I did before I joined this forum!

I don't know how to fully express how happy it makes me to hear sentiments like that!
Desslok, I think you’re a full-fledged LASERholic now.