so blue laser diodes are the strongest ones you can buy cheaply unlike the horribly expensive co2 lasers... many have looked upon the laser diode and were intimidated. they shrink back into their hovel of broken dreams perplexed. do you buy the laser driver or the buck boost converter they ask themselves. they cry into their pillow when their lab bench power supply kills the damn thing and wonder why? why did god do this to me
the answer is simple. you didnt need any of that. you bought a 1.6 - 2 watt laser diode. your ultimate goal is portability and you would prefer to use just 1 18650 if possible. just do it . 3.3 ohms would be the resistor you would use if the laser diode had zero resistance. it does not. if you use a 3.3 ohms resistor with the laser diode as a current limiting resistor you wont even get 200 mA through the damn thing and it craves 1.2 amps minimum. buy a 1 amp switch and call it a day if you havent taken apart a microwave and retrieved the 3 amp momentarys from the door assembly
if thats ok why did the lab bench power supply kill it? its not stable. many are built on old schematics which have fluctuations and rely on ohms law to create the specified voltage. so the socket voltage is bucked down to a set level but resistance will dictate the actual voltage. the device doesnt measure whats going across the load and needs the current to cut across a lower resistance pathway to ground to insure you get that specified voltage. which works fine 99.9% of the time and if yours is nice maybe even closer to 100% of the time. but if you red line the laser diode a transient could be to much. how many homeless people are riding the rails in your lab bench power supply per second?
the answer is simple. you didnt need any of that. you bought a 1.6 - 2 watt laser diode. your ultimate goal is portability and you would prefer to use just 1 18650 if possible. just do it . 3.3 ohms would be the resistor you would use if the laser diode had zero resistance. it does not. if you use a 3.3 ohms resistor with the laser diode as a current limiting resistor you wont even get 200 mA through the damn thing and it craves 1.2 amps minimum. buy a 1 amp switch and call it a day if you havent taken apart a microwave and retrieved the 3 amp momentarys from the door assembly
if thats ok why did the lab bench power supply kill it? its not stable. many are built on old schematics which have fluctuations and rely on ohms law to create the specified voltage. so the socket voltage is bucked down to a set level but resistance will dictate the actual voltage. the device doesnt measure whats going across the load and needs the current to cut across a lower resistance pathway to ground to insure you get that specified voltage. which works fine 99.9% of the time and if yours is nice maybe even closer to 100% of the time. but if you red line the laser diode a transient could be to much. how many homeless people are riding the rails in your lab bench power supply per second?
