Need help with my Laser

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So silly me lent my laser to my friend for a camping trip and it came back non functional. What was weird was if you twisted the cylinder between the driver connection to the diode it would sometimes turn on, which makes me think i twisted the wires badly while screwing it all together.

I opened it up and i found one of the wires that connected the driver to the diode had come apart.

So i soldered it back together and it still wouldn't work. Now I am worried, if my friend had been trying to use the laser while the driver wasn't doing its job that the diode might be fried.

I used my multimeter to test the batteries were okay and I am ready to buy a new driver because it looks really beat up from my crappy soldering jobs.

But now the golden question is what are the odds that my diode is dead? And if there is anyway to test the diode without a variable power supply.

 

[Razako]

You might have killed the diode with static electricity if you didn't take precautions while soldering it in. What kind of laser are we talking about here?

 

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DTR's 2W M140

 

[VirtueViolater]

Sounds to me like you need a driver,
If you power your driver with no load on it, it can damage your driver. If the driver became disconnected from the diode that could be the case.

 

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Can the diode get damaged from this?

 

[diachi]

Can the diode get damaged from this?

From the driver being powered up without the diode connected? Possibly - if you reconnect the diode without first discharging the output capacitors on the driver.