So some of you may have seen that I am going to build a blu-ray laser in another thread. I figured I'd make a separate thread for the actual build. I should have had the diode today, but I didn't get to the mail center at school earlier enough. Hopefully I'll be able to get it first thing in the morning. I've got my driver all built, and I'm pretty sure it works correctly. I built it on the breadboard and it worked perfectly, and then I build it on a circuit board and had some issues, but I think I managed to get it to work. I was aiming for about 125mA to the LD. That would require 10 ohm resistance for the LM317. I'm currently putting out about 95 mA (with a 6-diode and 10 ohm resistor test load, using the 1N4001 diodes). I should be putting out more, but my 9v battery started dying after it got drained from a wiring mistake. It's under 8v, and the drop across my LM317 is around .9v, I think because of my bad battery. Hopefully when I get a fresh one tomorrow, everything will check out. Anyways, here are a couple pictures of what I've got so far. I'm pretty happy with how small I managed to make the circuit. It's pretty much my first ever circuit that isn't on a bread board.
The host will be a project box from radio shack for now. I know it's not as slick as a flashlight, but it'll work for now and provide plenty of space to secure things and heat sink. If all goes well, I'll have pictures of the finished product tomorrow!
The host will be a project box from radio shack for now. I know it's not as slick as a flashlight, but it'll work for now and provide plenty of space to secure things and heat sink. If all goes well, I'll have pictures of the finished product tomorrow!
