I have a red laser diode that I have been working with for days and hours upon hours. I am getting extremely frustrated with it. After working on it the first time for several hours, and I mean several. Working on it I been just circuit boards and resistors. Anyways, after working on it for the first time I just figured I had blown in it. But I took it to my professor and he hooked it up to a power supply and it lased. Now I am here again, with a series circuit and the laser. Again I can't get it to lase. I am so close to just scrapping the entire little project I wanted to do.
It is a red laser 2.2 - 2.5v (it's been so long since I first got the diode) lase, somewhere around there and 30mA. I have it hooked up to a 9V battery.
At first I was doing a voltage divider, then an op-amp, now I'm just doing a series.
So in the series, I've been trying different resistors, each time measuring the voltage through the diode, it goes as follows:
R>300 ohms ----- <1V (through diode)
R=200 --------- ~1V
R=100 --------- ~1.1V
R=50 ---------- ~ 1.2V
I am now down to a 9V battery and a 22 ohm resistor, and only 1.5V is going through the diode, and the 7.5 through the battery. I see a pattern here and I bet it's basic.... but I don't wanna try another trial and error thing on this bread board. Please help.
Thank you.
---EDIT---
Also, the diode is not even lighting up like an LED. Needless to say I don't have much of a background in electronics, and this is my first time messing with an actually diode.
It is a red laser 2.2 - 2.5v (it's been so long since I first got the diode) lase, somewhere around there and 30mA. I have it hooked up to a 9V battery.
At first I was doing a voltage divider, then an op-amp, now I'm just doing a series.
So in the series, I've been trying different resistors, each time measuring the voltage through the diode, it goes as follows:
R>300 ohms ----- <1V (through diode)
R=200 --------- ~1V
R=100 --------- ~1.1V
R=50 ---------- ~ 1.2V
I am now down to a 9V battery and a 22 ohm resistor, and only 1.5V is going through the diode, and the 7.5 through the battery. I see a pattern here and I bet it's basic.... but I don't wanna try another trial and error thing on this bread board. Please help.
Thank you.
---EDIT---
Also, the diode is not even lighting up like an LED. Needless to say I don't have much of a background in electronics, and this is my first time messing with an actually diode.