Tiny Driver

[nvmextc]

With only 1 diode to play with and alot of leftover parts I'm practicing making drivers for future projects.
I looked at trublu's driver (http://www.laserpointerforums.com/forums/YaBB.pl?num=1206152652) for a while and came up with this.

 

[nvmextc]

And this is as best as I can describe the underside. I don't know which side is which on the IN4004 and the Cap, but I know it's around the right way from following my old driver.
This driver will run on 7.2v and have a 250ma output with it's 2x10ohms resistors in parallel. Perfect for my next Senkat diode. now I can finally work on a small housing and maybe some CR batteries for power 6AA or AAA's takes up too much space.

 

[nvmextc]

just realised where I posted this. sry. I was meant to put it in the experiments section. oh well. this might help someone.

 

[natabata]

1 little mistake i make way too many times, the 1N4004 diode should be soldered directly to the LD, orelse it won't do anything.
the reason its there is to prevent powering the LD with the wrong polarity, and you solder the ld to the driver so if you do it the wrong way round, you're stuffed(happened to me twice, never made the mistake again)

and it's possible to make the driver smaller just by making direct connections and no PCB

 

[nvmextc]

I just tested the driver, it doesn't work. And then while putting the LD back into my old driver I put the LD the wrong way around and it now makes a lil 1mW light.. So now I can't even work out if the new driver killed it or if t was just my silly mistake. (btw I short out my cap straight away whenever I unhook a diode)
I'm going to pull it apart and start from scratch. probably just dodgy soldering/wiring This time I'll connect the LD to the IN4004 better.
This pic is a driver i wade the other day without a board.

 

[rog8811]

I may be wrong but your photo above seems to show the switch wired so that it shorts the output of the regulator to ground :-/......Is it there to short out the capacitor? I am confused as to why you dont have the switch in either the pos or neg wire from the battery holder????

Also, it is hard to see, but I assume the black from the battery and the black from the Aixiz housing are both joined to the negative side of the capacitor?.... Its just that, due to the angle that the photo is taken from, it look as though it is a single wire passing under everything else....

Regards rog8811

 

[nvmextc]

I have moved the button since I took that photo. I'm confused why I put it there myself. : I'm new to circuits, It was such a headache making this 1 and the tiny 5x5 1
lol that does look like just 1 wire. You're right they are 2 seperate wires both connected to the negative of the cap and to the IN4004