Possible new and cheep driver.

[Ehgemus]

I have been eye balling these things for weeks and finally bought a two pack of these USB cell phone charger packs. My first thought for these was to build a custom host with one of these inside and I could have a host with an on board charger build inside.
After opening one of these up, the driver board looks just like the drivers we are using in are lasers. I believe someone on here that knows more about drivers and electronics could modify one of these to make it an adjustable driver. They already put out 5v at 1A.
I payed just under 10.00 for a 2 pack at Walmart. Tell me what you thank.

 

[Pi R Squared]

Instead of modifying one and loosing the USB power capability I think you should just build a custom host with one of those inside it. Or get one of the larger flashlights with the built in USB power that gives you room for a laser. See what KRNAZNBOY did last year:
http://laserpointerforums.com/f65/d...-usb-charger-laser-wooop-pic-heavy-89432.html
Those same flashlights are still sold:
https://www.fasttech.com/products/1601/10002464/1181701-jinheng-2-in-1-cree-t6-5-mode-900-lumen

Alan

 

[rhd]

Those will be constant voltage boost drivers, not constant current, so as a starting point, you'd need a new PCB. While it's possible that you could move some of the parts to a new PCB, the IC likely has a high feedback voltage that wouldn't lend itself to constant current configurations without introduction of a current sense monitor (a second IC). So whether you switch to an IC meant for constant current driving of LEDs/LDs, or retain the existing IC and add a current sense monitor, you're still buying another IC.

So long story short, you're not really repurposing a driver, as much as you are harvesting an inductor and a diode, and those are pretty cheap parts to just buy ($2 maybe, for the ones on that board).

Good thought though!

 

[Ehgemus]

Well that sucks.
This would have been great to get 2 drivers and 2 18650 batteries for 10.00