- Joined
- Dec 27, 2011
- Messages
- 2,062
- Points
- 48
As a noob, I am starting off with off-the-shelf parts and trying to build a laser or two for the pleasure of creating my own laser.
I have been here a couple of months now, and have immersed myself into the forum quite deeply. I still have a lot to learn and there are some great resources here. I'd like to suggest another one...
How about a sticky driver thread?
My thinking is that it could include any known drivers that the forum is familiar with, along with what diodes each works best with and what voltages/currents are best for the diodes we use most often.
It would be really neat if I decided to build an LPC-826 laser and could come to a thread that showed which drivers are appropriate or recommended for that diode and which currents are available for it, which battery configs, etc...
Right now, that information is available on the forum, but (to my knowledge) not in a single post/thread.
If it IS here and I have overlooked it, I would appreciate if someone could point me to it and I'll slink off, red-faced and go print it out and keep it by my workshop table as a cheat sheet.
It would be neat to, if we could add flashlight drivers that work, or other drivers that perhaps aren't as well known or often used.
One thing that has me just a little discouraged after a few months here is the feeling that there are really only a few diodes out there, and pretty much everyone is building the same things with different hosts.
It would be neat if there were resources on drivers that were a little off the beaten path, maybe drivers with strobes, low/hi.
Anyway, I'm probably going a little long with this, but it would be a neat resource if it is possible. Not sure who would curate the posts and organize them into one, but I would be willing to try if someone started putting information in a thread.
If you wanted to participate, you could make a post about a particular driver...
name;
type of driver,
shape and size,
features (modes, strobe, hi, low, rev polarity, etc)
price range,
what diodes it is best used for,
what battery/batteries are best for the driver,
anything else I'm forgetting...
Anyway, that is just a wild thought that I had and thought that I would share with you all.
I have been here a couple of months now, and have immersed myself into the forum quite deeply. I still have a lot to learn and there are some great resources here. I'd like to suggest another one...
How about a sticky driver thread?
My thinking is that it could include any known drivers that the forum is familiar with, along with what diodes each works best with and what voltages/currents are best for the diodes we use most often.
It would be really neat if I decided to build an LPC-826 laser and could come to a thread that showed which drivers are appropriate or recommended for that diode and which currents are available for it, which battery configs, etc...
Right now, that information is available on the forum, but (to my knowledge) not in a single post/thread.
If it IS here and I have overlooked it, I would appreciate if someone could point me to it and I'll slink off, red-faced and go print it out and keep it by my workshop table as a cheat sheet.
It would be neat to, if we could add flashlight drivers that work, or other drivers that perhaps aren't as well known or often used.
One thing that has me just a little discouraged after a few months here is the feeling that there are really only a few diodes out there, and pretty much everyone is building the same things with different hosts.
It would be neat if there were resources on drivers that were a little off the beaten path, maybe drivers with strobes, low/hi.
Anyway, I'm probably going a little long with this, but it would be a neat resource if it is possible. Not sure who would curate the posts and organize them into one, but I would be willing to try if someone started putting information in a thread.
If you wanted to participate, you could make a post about a particular driver...
name;
type of driver,
shape and size,
features (modes, strobe, hi, low, rev polarity, etc)
price range,
what diodes it is best used for,
what battery/batteries are best for the driver,
anything else I'm forgetting...
Anyway, that is just a wild thought that I had and thought that I would share with you all.
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). The fun in this hobby for me is the driver design and near-complete customization of the hosts, which I do on the lathe at school.