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FrozenGate by Avery

Second build.. I think i'm hooked!

Craydaze and benmwv sound very harsh. It is alright to be mad . The word spoon fed . Well that does not go against the rules. I am on the receiving end. but yet both of you are willing to help. That is the spirit I like from the members. I am new and have to go through the mill. before I pick up all the skills of maneuvering in and out to find what I want.

I would like to thank both of you sincerely
Tony1
 





I'm guessing that we are dealing with an ESL (English as a Second Language) here so let's not pounce too quickly. Sometimes language barriers cause confusion. Heck, we argue here pretty well when we all speak the same language.

Tony, tell us a little about yourself so we can better help you.

Just to let you know, and I think that you have discovered to some degree, but Ben is probably one of the more giving/sharing members of the forum when it comes to driver design. The Benboost drastically changed the options available for open-source drivers here on the forum.

There IS a DRIVERS section on the forum and several drivers are available, there are some being designed and that need volunteers to help with testing and you would be welcome to participate.

I have mixed feelings about spoon feeding. It is ok to be spoonfed and it is ok to spoonfeed but I don't think it is ok to EXPECT to be spoonfed.

There are lots of ways to learn, but reading the appropriate sections of the forum is your best bet.

Welcome to the forum, hopefully you will find your way around and discover just how helpful the members here really are and you can learn from the veterans (senior members) and become a senior member one day yourself.

:beer:
 
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tony1 said:
Craydaze and benmwv sound very harsh. It is alright to be mad . The word spoon fed . Well that does not go against the rules. I am on the receiving end. but yet both of you are willing to help. That is the spirit I like from the members. I am new and have to go through the mill. before I pick up all the skills of maneuvering in and out to find what I want.

I would like to thank both of you sincerely
Tony1
Click to expand...


Tony,

I have registered in 2010, did not post much, took a long brake from lasers, consider myself a N00B and yet when came back was able to search the forum easily enough using custom search engine (google) and custom search option provided here on the forum as well. Go to Drivers section and you can find a thread for Open source boost driver by rhd and benmw (thank you both!!!), a thread where jib77 was designing his own driver before he left, big loss for us... (don't remember whether it was boost or buck or boost/buck), and one more thread by laserluke (thank you very much!!!) for an open source driver... Lurking is the key to success mate!

:)

P.S. I have no experience designing drivers but looking at those PCB's makes me want to play with electronics more and more. I plan on building the benboost driver myself from scratch to get experience in smd soldering and electronics in general.
 
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Dear tsteele93,

I am not offended by the spoon feed, as far as LPF is concerned I am a baby(junior member), so I ask for a little help. Giving help to another is a divine thing, but to demand I thing it is bad. Did I sound like I demanded. If I did I am sorry, That is not my way.

More about me:

I was a teacher teaching sport science , Art and Computer Lesson. I had my own Computer center aided by my children. It is over now. I took up computer engineering and spend all my time repairing computer. My children followed my step and graduated in computer science. From 1990 I have repairing electronic things, now mostly CRT and LCD monitor and TVs. Unfortunately I am suffering from Tinnitus and loss of hearing.

During my study my class members used to design a few circuit. I can design drivers but using normal components on strip board or etch my own circuit. I do sell my things through agents. SMD are new to me and it was by accident that I discoverd laser pointers on the internet. I bought two green laser pointers, 500mw and 1 watt.I became more interested and began reading anything connected to laser.

I have taken out laser diode from DVD Rom and tried. They can't burn anything. I am now collecting Aixiz modules and 2 watt laser diode to try them out,unfortunately not as a pointer. I was playing around with R/C airplane and helicopters and now I have got a new hobby(laser pointers). I want to go as far as using laser pointers to cut and join fine jewellery . I find using gas is not very convenient. Well I hope that helps members to know me better. Also I am 67 years old. I live in a large house alone most of the time. Visiters and travelers are welcome to stay if they need a place. I also have a condo in the highland where the weather is cool. It is empty now.

I hope this is enough tsteele93, u asked for it.
Thanks,
Thanks to Gillza too

Tony1
 
crazydaze said:
Ok, so back to the thread:
2pcs adjustable current laser diode driver 80-500mA w/TTL | eBay Has anybody used this driver, was thinking of 2x 18650's to give ~7.4v to the driver, but will that cover the 0.5-1.5v (driver cost) and the >5v diode cost... iirc there is also another drop in voltage incurred by something else, cant find thread atm tho.
Click to expand...

Ok so that driver is a Linear regulator and although the header says it is 80-500mA the description says 80-300mA. At 300mA S06J diodes have a forward voltage around 5.7V and 6.1V at 500mA (here and here ) so in order to use that driver you will need to provide an input voltage of 7.2V minimum for 300mA and 7.6V minimum for 500mA current. Now two average lithium cells will give you 7.4V and some will give you 8.4V when fully charged so when the battery drains a bit you will loose the ability to provide desired current.

Since you want to use two cells why not get BlitzBuck driver V2 or V3 instead and resolder the resistors for desired current (the formula is available in the manual and in the V3 thread for both V2 and V3) or Xdrive v6 buck driver preset to 500mA. Or if you are lucky and can get flexdrive or when someone clones it and offers for sale here.

You other option is to loose one cell and go instead with boost driver such as benboost or microboost. With benboost you will have to resolder a different resistor because the only preset current I've seen so far was 930mA.

Good luck.
 
Tony,

That was great. Welcome to the forum! What country do you live in?

Be sure to check out osh park for pcb design. If you need smt boards, they are inexpensive.

If you live in a country where it is difficult to get boards from osh park, many of us can help order them and ship to you.

I think the miscommunication in your first posts may have been partly language barriers. There are plenty of people who will help. They do ask that you search the forum for the basics before asking for everything to be "spoonfed" as they say.

But if you need help with even the basics, there are member who will try and help or at least point you the right way.

I feel like you will do well here and that any misunderstandings will be quickly forgotten and overlooked.

But as others have said, you would do yourself a great service if you read as much as possible before posting questions. Many times this will improve your questions and eliminate many of them before they are even asked.

So... Fire away, what would you like to know?
 
Ok cool, I think I am still gonna go with the 2x 18650's i have a boost driver that says 300mA+ so I guess I have the option of finding out what the + really means lol if the linear driver fails to work. I may even use the TTL module and have some fun with that on a cheap 300mW i found lol.
Glad everythings cool with tony now :)
Thinking about adding a laser on to my steel lathe as well, make a laser welder to make custom heatsinks etc. need to melt copper so a big diode is in order i guess.
 
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Dear tsteele93,

Thanks for the warm welcome. I am staying in Malaysia. The electronic venders here sell only the 5 mw small laser pointers. You can buy a lot of other electronic stuffs here but not laser diode or drivers. I don't know of any one here who is interested in laser. I have bought laser pointer parts from China and Modwerx USA.

Thanks tsteele93 also thanks to gillza
 
OK, sorry to rebump but still no diode, however my host has arrived 200Lum CREE P4 Q4 LED Light Flashlight Torch+Holster BK | eBay and I have a dilemma. The on/off switch has 3 modes; high, low and blink (high). Basically if I use this host and switch will I then get a 3 mode laser? Or is the driver for the LED responsible for the 4 states/modes? I will be ripping the LED driver apart and just using the pcb as battery contact, but I dont want to touch the switch, why should I need to lol? :knight:
 
OK build scrapped until I get the sled from odicforce... been waiting a month from these people, at least I got a refund. Ty
Although I got a couple of reds from odicforce otw!
 
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Currently odicforce is my guy, I am in the UK and they have fast delivery and good customer service. I like em, until I get more power mad that is.. no 1w 445s.
 
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