Laser driver that supports pulsing

[Blodnatt]

I am sure I will be told I'm in the wrong place, but since you guys are the laser experts I'd like to see if you could help.

I am working as an undergrad in a lab on my campus that has a simple optics setup. We have a 10mW 635nm diode that we are using to bounce off a mirror to a photodetector. We built a driver circuit:

http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/sgld1sch.pdf

and it tends to burn out every-so-often. The last few times I fixed it it was due to a blown transistor. I replaced it with a transistor with a higher power tolerance but it did not fix it this time.

We need to pulse the laser at something like 10-1000 Hz.

Our budget is good now and if I find a driver online I will buy one. My problem is that I cannot find information about if the drivers support pulsing. We ordered one, but it will now allow pulsing. I noticed none of the specs mention this at all.

So does anyone know of an appropriate driver that we can use? The current driver could still work but I'm having trouble figuring out what each and every circuit element does.

OR can you direct me to a site that would help?

Help me laserpointerforums...you are my only hope.

 

[Cyparagon]

I think this would be the simplest option. Power it with about 6V, and send a 5V signal at whichever frequency you want to the TTL pin.

If 80mA is too much, you can dump some of it via a resistor in parallel with the laser diode. You can also replace the current sense resistors (1R5 I presume) with something higher if you're feeling adventurous.