I thought I should introduce my self since I think this is going to be a new hobby of mine.
About my self; I'm from Canada, BC and I'm currently on year 3 of my electronic engineering degree. I stumbled onto this forum when I was trying to find out some information on my ebay laser pointer, and how to increase its output. Making it do that wasn't a problem for me, but what I was looking for was some information on how much this diode could take. Turns out it is probably already at its max and is higher then its rating of 5mW (Total current draw of the regulator+laser diode was ~260mA. Being that its probably better then <5% efficiency I concluded that the output power was greater then 5mW)
Anyways, now I want to build one, so watch out for the dumb questions on assembling, optics, your terminology (You guys call heat sinks 'pills' here?), and I'm sure other things as I read into this.
About my self; I'm from Canada, BC and I'm currently on year 3 of my electronic engineering degree. I stumbled onto this forum when I was trying to find out some information on my ebay laser pointer, and how to increase its output. Making it do that wasn't a problem for me, but what I was looking for was some information on how much this diode could take. Turns out it is probably already at its max and is higher then its rating of 5mW (Total current draw of the regulator+laser diode was ~260mA. Being that its probably better then <5% efficiency I concluded that the output power was greater then 5mW)
Anyways, now I want to build one, so watch out for the dumb questions on assembling, optics, your terminology (You guys call heat sinks 'pills' here?), and I'm sure other things as I read into this.