ive been through 3 diodes so far, one is completely ruined, the + wire from the battery touched the circuit board, giving the diode the batterys full current, it just made a bright flash and that was it, dead :'(.
the other one is running fine, ive got it ready to go into a sonar case, and run it off two cr123as.
the other one is running at 9v and 117ma!, its running at such a high current because i had the diode set up and running fine on the batteries but i didnt realise that the batteries were almost half dead so when i connected some new batteries, the laser was flickering alot and the next time i turned it on the dot was very dim and looked as if it had been cut in half but, after increasing the current and voltage, its running fine now
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so yeah, it really depends on the diode you get, all of the ones ive gotten run at pretty much the same current but, then again, you may get a diode that runs at a current alot lower than usual and blow it thinking that it will be like all the others.