Long story short, I'm trying to attach a red laser diode to a pendant, to light up a quartz crystal.
I'm not looking to build a high-powered burning laser, but if the red speckly shine is to be visible in bright situations I think I'm looking at something like 10mW -- perhaps a teensy bit more, I'm far from sure. Anything brighter than 20mW and the light would probably be blinding. Hence potentiometers! A max total output of 20mW and a min of 1mW would probably be ideal.
As the driver, diode and (button!) batteries would have to go onto the actual crystal, size is really a problem. So I don't think I can just solder something that small together myself. :<
As a proof-of-concept, I butchered a <5mW cat toy laser pointer and extracted the 3V module there, to hold up against my crystal. I removed the casing because it was in the way, and the lens because I have simply no need of one; the more the light spreads throughout the crystal, the better. Eventually I had only the driver circuitry with its embedded laser diode left. Conclusion: concept should work but the light was a mite weak, so a 10mW diode might suit this project better.
The driver itself was pretty basic. No potentiometer, no capacitors, probably no real voltage regulation or anything; just one resistor, some stuff underneath a blob of solder and a metal surface I assume is a heatsink. It was small, though; 10x10mm. Perfect for the purpose, but cheap enough to make me worried.
As such, now I'm looking for better non-cat toy alternatives! I could buy modules off of eBay and skip the whole part where I'm vivisecting toys, but there doesn't seem to be any suitable red ones in the 10-20mW range, and those thereabouts don't seem to be adjustable and/or seem to be of dubious quality.
In the end, the one wearing the pendant and adjusting it's brightness wouldn't be me -- so if I bought a super-powerful driver aimed toward (say) 80-500mW diodes, and somehow managed to coax the potentiometer to go all the way down to 0, there's simply no way the wearer would be able to tweak the brightness at all without frying everything if only the lightest touch to the pot would bump the current up to 200mA. I want a certain degree of foolproof-ness. :> Save the users from themselves!
Is there any easy, off-the-shelf solution I'm missing? There's an abundance of diodes on eBay, but I can't find any drivers in this effect range. There was one rated for 5mW reds, but as mentioned I want at least 10mW. My Google-fu and Forum-searching martial arts seem insufficient. High-power lasers seem to be the focus. :>
Any help or pointers would be greatly appreciated. I'm very green in this area. I don't want to go down in history as the scourge of cat toys.
I'm not looking to build a high-powered burning laser, but if the red speckly shine is to be visible in bright situations I think I'm looking at something like 10mW -- perhaps a teensy bit more, I'm far from sure. Anything brighter than 20mW and the light would probably be blinding. Hence potentiometers! A max total output of 20mW and a min of 1mW would probably be ideal.
As the driver, diode and (button!) batteries would have to go onto the actual crystal, size is really a problem. So I don't think I can just solder something that small together myself. :<
As a proof-of-concept, I butchered a <5mW cat toy laser pointer and extracted the 3V module there, to hold up against my crystal. I removed the casing because it was in the way, and the lens because I have simply no need of one; the more the light spreads throughout the crystal, the better. Eventually I had only the driver circuitry with its embedded laser diode left. Conclusion: concept should work but the light was a mite weak, so a 10mW diode might suit this project better.
The driver itself was pretty basic. No potentiometer, no capacitors, probably no real voltage regulation or anything; just one resistor, some stuff underneath a blob of solder and a metal surface I assume is a heatsink. It was small, though; 10x10mm. Perfect for the purpose, but cheap enough to make me worried.
As such, now I'm looking for better non-cat toy alternatives! I could buy modules off of eBay and skip the whole part where I'm vivisecting toys, but there doesn't seem to be any suitable red ones in the 10-20mW range, and those thereabouts don't seem to be adjustable and/or seem to be of dubious quality.
In the end, the one wearing the pendant and adjusting it's brightness wouldn't be me -- so if I bought a super-powerful driver aimed toward (say) 80-500mW diodes, and somehow managed to coax the potentiometer to go all the way down to 0, there's simply no way the wearer would be able to tweak the brightness at all without frying everything if only the lightest touch to the pot would bump the current up to 200mA. I want a certain degree of foolproof-ness. :> Save the users from themselves!
Is there any easy, off-the-shelf solution I'm missing? There's an abundance of diodes on eBay, but I can't find any drivers in this effect range. There was one rated for 5mW reds, but as mentioned I want at least 10mW. My Google-fu and Forum-searching martial arts seem insufficient. High-power lasers seem to be the focus. :>
Any help or pointers would be greatly appreciated. I'm very green in this area. I don't want to go down in history as the scourge of cat toys.
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