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FrozenGate by Avery

mA or mW?

S

siop

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Oct 3, 2008
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How many members, who make lasers, dont have a meter to check the mW of their lasers, and just go off the mA? Is this an acceptable practice, if you dont really care about the mW, but more about the brightness? I want to start building my own toys, but dont want to spend the 2 or 3 hundred bucks on a power meter right now. I dont have a prob goin and getting a multimeter, soldering iron, and what ever tools I need to help, but kind havin a hard time justifying this meter right now when I'm just beggining. So was curious how many of you just measure the mA and not the mW?
 





It's not a big problem, it is just that the mW of a laser provides a better idea of how powerful the laser is. Of course there are mA-mW graphs, but like they say, every diode is different.
To answer your question, I measure my lasers by the mA, simply because I don't have a laser power meter.
 
Well it's just not the same you know, you need a multimeter when your building so you don't blow something up with more current than it can handle.You need a multimeter for any electronics project. ::) A power meter is just to know the exact output, you dont need it while building your laser.Members who have power meters also use measure mA when building and testing a circuit. ::)
 
LaserHawk said:
How many members, who make lasers, dont have a meter to check the mW of their lasers, and just go off the mA? Is this an acceptable practice, if you dont really care about the mW, but more about the brightness? I want to start building my own toys, but dont want to spend the 2 or 3 hundred bucks on a power meter right now. I dont have a prob goin and getting a multimeter, soldering iron, and what ever tools I need to help, but kind havin a hard time justifying this meter right now when I'm just beggining. So was curious how many of you just measure the mA and not the mW?
Click to expand...

How many mW do you actually need to measure.. :-?
If you are only interested in the Green, Red and IR wavelengths there is an
inexpensive alternative to test relative mW output up to 120mW. :)
 
I was doing the ma thing but it varies from diode to diode getting a couple meters here pretty fast I hope if anyone needs they're lasers checked and are close to fresno california let me know ;D ;D ;D just buy me a rockstar energy drink and we'll test away
 
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