It works again!

[Wmacky]

I pulled out the trusty blue ray of death last night after a few weeks of neglect. (Didn't have the heart after a forum member had stolen from me) As a whizzed the mighty blue bar of fire across the crisp blackend sky, I heard someone across the street, wondering around in one of the yards yell, My God - What is it? At that instant the laser went from a normal bright beam to instantly dead! I mean just nothing. Now it was my turn to yell, My God!

My fairly new first build / First ever laser of a magnificent 2,800mw just blew up! It had only been used about a total of 15 minutes of on time, and never any longer than about 45 Sec. I pulled it apart and checked switch continuity. All good. Check the diode window. All good. Put the fluke on the batts, and first batt was a lowish 3.2V - OK. Second batt was 0 volts.

Huh?
0 volts??
0 volts!
OOOOOH - Then it hit me. Voltage protected batts! I threw them on the charger, and the mighty blue lives again!

 

[SilverFire]

Awesome! What power is your laser? And doesn't it look like an infinite beacon of blue light from the side? (assuming the laser is focused enough)

 

[Wmacky]

Awesome! What power is your laser? And doesn't it look like an infinite beacon of blue light from the side? (assuming the laser is focused enough)

It's a 2800mw laser.

No it really doesn't look infinite. For some reason all lasers seem to end abrubtly about 500 when pointed into the nigh sky. They really don't stop at 500' but that how I preceive it????

 

[SilverFire]

Wow. 2.8w. Couldn't imagine how the beam would look on that. Lol then again, I've never even seem the beam of anything over 5mW. Still getting started.

 

[trussmonkey25]

Sometime the Easiest Simplest of solutions are the best. Lol