jasturbo02 said:
I just got mine today SenKat. Thanks for the fast shipping. However, this thing is not as bright as the dvd burner reds I have been making, second it won't even pop a black baloon or light a sharpied match at any distance. My DIY red pops black baloons instantly and unsharpied matches very quickly. I tried 2 different sets of batteries and the focus seems to be fine so I did not try adjusting that.
Here's a suggestion: pop out and reseat the main switch.
Mine had a resistance of 1.2 ohms all by itself, so I took a closer look to see if there was a resistor in there. The knob you press can be pried off easily with a small flathead, revealing the white plastic post of the switch itself, with the dark gray switch housing visible at its base. Carefully press down on that housing, and you should be able to pop the switch out of the aluminum end cap.
It is mounted on a round board, whose bottom holds the positive contact. Take a good look, and you'll see something that had me shaking my head: the contact with the end cap is basicaly a press fit solder blob -- not the most stable of contact materials
After I reseated it, its resistance was 0.3 ohms -- and there was a slight boost in output, as compared to my Star Wars blaster. Now it's almost twice as bright as the latter. I figure if I had a laser power meter the difference would have been significant.
That, combined with the brass contact ring, simply isn't the best current path design I've seen
I'm thinking of rigging up a better setup.
Glad it got there okay, glad you like it too !