Greetings everyone,
I've been lurking on here for a couple weeks, finally found an excuse to start posting.
By day I'm a software developer for a state law enforcement agency, at night I wear a spandex jumpsuit and fight crime! If by "fight crime" you mean "shock and disgust people".
I've been an electronics hobbyist for a couple years now (lots of console modding and hacking, if anyone wants a NES controller universal remote PM me, I'm making a bunch for Xmas presents this year). Since the famous Instructables post caught my attention, lasers are quickly becoming the focus of my tinkering.
As I said, I was originally attracted by the maglite project, but it quickly became clear that this was a half-arsed implementation. So I built Daedal's driver circuit and have been using that for everything. (need to make a few extras)
My first attempt at building a DVD burner-based laser failed when the diode took a tumble across carpet. I felt a lot better when Gazoo mentioned that the drive I used had an unusually difficult extraction process (Lite-ON 20x). My Pioneer 112 drive should be here tomorrow, hopefully with much better results (you can bet I will be extra-paranoid about static now, wrist strap instead of touching pc case, etc).
I also have a DX 30mw greenie on its way, a small handful of <5mw pointers, and an audio modulated HeNe, including a fiber optics experiment kit. Unfortunately, the HeNe doesn't fire. I've traced voltage all the way into the HV power supply, so I'm guessing this is where the problem lies. I will probably try to light up the tube alone (as per the FAQ) to verify that it's the P/S I need to replace, then buy a new one. I'm really looking forward to using this one with my sons as it's neat looking and sufficiently low-power (.95mw) to be somewhat safe for them to operate (at least compared to 140mw+). It also has a few crystals and diffraction gratings that screw into the tip.. I've been using these with pointers but it's a pain keeping them aligned by hand.
Some items on my shopping list for the near future include: 3 GB diodes, fog machine (waiting for the post-halloween sales) and some sort of scanner (probably start with a cheap one and upgrade the laser for starters, then I might try a take on Rog's portable scanner... smashing job on that by the way)
Anyway, now that I've broken radio silence, you'll probably be hearing a lot more from me.
-Mr. Burns
I'm new to lasers in general so please bear with me... :
