I think I blew the resistor in my 50mw Green

[bloompyle]

It just stopped working, no heat or smoke, but if I smell my laser, it smells like metal. Or the smell when grinding away the heatsink of a diode. Or soldering. Something like that. It's not overwhelming, and only when I get close to my laser do I smell it. I get the feeling it's unfixable (or atleast not by me). Can anybody here to a repair job on it?

EDIT: After taking the batteries out and letting it cool for a bit, it works (it 'died' about 10mins before that post). Anybody know what could have caused it to stop working and smell like metal...or more closely related, something melting? Like foam or something?

 

[robjdixon]

It just stopped working, no heat or smoke, but if I smell my laser, it smells like metal. Or the smell when grinding away the heatsink of a diode. Or soldering. Something like that. It's not overwhelming, and only when I get close to my laser do I smell it. I get the feeling it's unfixable (or atleast not by me). Can anybody here to a repair job on it?

EDIT: After taking the batteries out and letting it cool for a bit, it works (it 'died' about 10mins before that post). Anybody know what could have caused it to stop working and smell like metal...or more closely related, something melting? Like foam or something?

What is the laser made from?

Also, It might be bad batteries, or just an angry laser IDK

 

[bloompyle]

What is the laser made from?

Also, It might be bad batteries, or just an angry laser IDK

I get your point, but it had an odd smell it didn't have before. It wasn't directly like metal, it was like something melting/burning/the smell of melting solder.

And the batteries were fine, they didn't smell. Just the driver half. And now my laser flickers into different brightnesses. Sometimes dim, then bright, then inbewteen, etc. It's acting very strange.

 

[robjdixon]

It is possible a driver problem if the laser is flickering. Did you drop it before it stopped working?

Rob

 

[bloompyle]

No...I didn't do anything odd with it. I tried using a 10440 since I was tired of going through AAA's like mad, but that was it.

 

[Morgan]

What duty cycle were you observing? Going over a duty cycle can overheat the internals and push them out of alignment or move the wavelength of the pump diode slightly so that it no longer converts to green.

I can't comment on the batteries for definite but I think that they could be kicking out a little more than ones you were using.

Just try to limit the time you have it on and let it cool down. It may not FEEL warm but inside it could be.

M

 

[Jaseth]

Check all the solder joints.
If for some reason the driver got really really hot it may have partially de-soldered a connection, which would explain both the smell, the initial "death" and the current stability problem.

Seb

 

[TTerbo]

10440s have more voltage in thwm than normal AAA bateries you fried the driver.!

 

[Benm]

Or you had a short circuit - the battery spring touching the case. I've had that problem with some of the aaa-powered lasers from DX... the short circuit makes the batteries extremely hot (obviously), but could also melt the spring if the contact is not that strong (i.e. enough resistance to have some voltage drop).

If it started working again spontanously, i reckon that might explain it best.

 

[Seoul_lasers]

Right, 10440's are typical Li-ion cells. 3.7-4.2v per cell. You'd need 2.5-3 x AAA cells to equal in voltage what one 10440 would deliver.

 

[BShanahan14rulz]

Probably something in the driver trying to shunt off the extra voltage and overheating.

I noticed that a 3.0V green module I bought has a small surface-mount resistor. Big deal, wanna fight about it? Well, turns out, when using an 18650 to power the module, this resistor gets too hot to touch within 4 or 5 seconds, while with an actual 3V source, the resistor barely gets warm. I added solder blobs to it, but I will probably end up adding a diode to drop another volt.

 

[TTerbo]

He used the wrong batteries