How long til my WL fusion dies out?

[meepo]

My fusion is ridiculously under powered, so I tried pot modding it, but I think has some safety feature because it shuts off when I go too far, there's still power going to the driver though. So instead I put in 3 AAA batteries which total around 3.8-4.1 Volts depending on the batteries I use. Now it burns without the aid of lenses, before it wouldn't even smoke matches, now it burns matches in 2~ seconds. Now this probably can't be good for the diode, but I really could care less now. So my question is how long til my Fusion gives in? BTW it's like 3~ years old.

 

[ndrew2505]

it shuts off b/c the pot only goes so far before going back to the lowest setting. seeing as how its a wicked laser im surprised it lasted for 3yrs... how long it will last now depends on what kind of diode was in it and how much current it can handle..

 

[Deleted member 8382]

it's now a random time bomb, just enjoy it till it dies

 

[meepo]

the power is not actually high enough to light matches, but I just played around with the collimating lens so the beam gets really tight at around 1 ft from the aperture, and the divergence looks the same! The black piece on the driver, I'm thinking its the resistor? Gets really hot after 5-7 seconds, is there anything I can do to not let it get so hot? Other than operating my laser at a 5 sec duty cycle.

 

[Deleted member 8382]

well, you boosted the power by adding input voltage. I guess you could adjust the pot to protect the diode, but still, it's just maths, your feeding it with 4V and probably it's taking 400mA or even more from the batteries, almost 2W... its gonna get got anyway xD

 

[meepo]

Lowering the pot would just decrease the power again, and I don't want to go back :/. I don't get the second part of your post @_@.Eh w/e kinda newb at this stuff, I'm still using the laser without a housing, damn touching that resistor hurts!. So it's just the module and a 3 AAA battery bracket that used to be in a mini LED flashlight, but the module is too long to put in the flashlight.

Is this laser even worth the trouble? I mean any of these days it might die on me, but I can't let it go =[ it has served me well these years.