10x DR LAVA P3 Drivers Needed

[andyf97]

Anyone have some in Europe, need 10 units or more kind of rapid..

[Phredy1]

Anyone have some in Europe, need 10 units or more kind of rapid..

The supply of P3's in the USA is about zero. drlava has left us hung out to dry it seems. mixedgas was supposed to build some drivers, but......?

I have 2 builds sitting in the corner waiting for drivers and a friend has multiple builds waiting for drivers.

Maybe someone is Europe has some.

2 words: Good luck

[andyf97]

Yikes, I have just re-counted what I need and its more like 24 not 10.

What's happened with Andrew, not seen him online for a while, is he in that area hit by a tornado?

[MisterWilling]

What's happened with Andrew, not seen him online for a while, is he in that area hit by a tornado?

I'm not sure he was in the area hit by tornadoes ( I don't think so), but his absence is most likely due to his schooling last I heard.

[hivelaser]

actually their are some new drivers coming, my friend has a run with TEC and LD Driver, and an here solarice is building some drivers too, just takes a little time then they should be ready.

[allthatwhichis]

I believe drlava was working on completing his PhD causing him to have little time for anything but his education; rightly so. I am sure he will be back once he has "Dr." in front of his name... As opposed to "dr"...

[chad]

The supply of P3's in the USA is about zero. drlava has left us hung out to dry it seems. mixedgas was supposed to build some drivers, but......?

I have 2 builds sitting in the corner waiting for drivers and a friend has multiple builds waiting for drivers.

Maybe someone is Europe has some.

2 words: Good luck

This is not the first time I have seen you rail on Andrew for having the audacity not to have a driver available on demand.

So here is my suggestion for you:

1. First protoboard a driver, go through several revisions until you are sure that it can meet the specs that you have laid out and it is not going to blow up expensive sensitive diodes.
2. Then layout a tiny smd pcb, get a test batch of boards. Then order small quantities of the 30+ parts for the board. Then hand solder the test boards. Then make any changes and repeat the process until you have a gold master board layout and schematic that you are happy with.
3. Now you can make a pcb file for the board house and pannelize the boards for production. Also you have to generate a pick and place file for the board assembly house as well as order all of the components in quantity hoping that the price hasn't changed too much and the parts are still available. If there are any parts that are a problem go back to step 2.
4. Spend a bunch of money getting boards and pay the pick and place house to populate your panels of drivers. Do any hand soldering of through hole parts (if applicable) then de-pannelize the boards. Now you have to test each board so when some noobie bugs you about the fact that your board doesn't work you know it is most likely a problem on his end.
5. Customer support: Now you have a inbox brimming with questions, try to answer in a timely fashion. Repeat, ad nauseum. Deal with shipping and fixing boards that people despite your best efforts have managed to blow up a quite, un-blowup-able driver.
6. Setup a little online store, get all of your shipping crap sorted and now you are ready to sell to the adoring public.
7. Keep the price low enough so people don't bitch, because how dare you actually make any money on your effort.

Do all of this in addition to the other drivers that you have built and designed for the pointer dorks. Repeat steps 1 through 7 for each of the other products.

This alone is enough for a full time job. Now work a regular job and, oh yea, in your spare time, GET YOUR FUCKING PhD. You also want to try to have some semblance of life outside of adoring laser enthusiasts and filling your brain with knowledge or trying to pay for said activities. It might be nice to get laid one in a while, or just relax and have a beer, or both.

Doc. Andrew doesn't OWE you, me or anyone, anything. Instead of bitching you should be thankful that he has a masochistic streak for building well built, and very affordable laser drivers and other laser products for a tiny and fickle audience.
I guarantee that he is not going to retire on your driver purchase. In fact I would be willing to bet that if you look at it in a strictly business sense the entire endeavor is a net loss. He does it because he wants to, not because he is getting rich. I don't see Coherent making a 3 amp 100khz analog tiny diode driver for us laser enthusiasts.

He will have more drivers when, he has more drivers.

If you need a driver right now then go here and cut the poor guy some slack or do it your self.

http://www.teamwavelength.com/produc...t.asp?part=174

chad

BTW: This applies to anyone on these forums building stuff for us hobbyists.

[Phredy1]

This is not the first time I have seen you rail on Andrew for having the audacity not to have a driver available on demand.

If you supply and sell to the general public and you have what most would consider the best diode driver available - and knowing a lot of people are depending on you for their supply of drivers, you want to take a break, in my opinion you:

A. Let people know ahead of time the supply is going to run dry soon.

B. Have someone else do a run or two of drivers while you do what's important.

Especially now when diode drivers are more needed than ever.

No one has ever suggested to me that Andrew made Flexmod drivers to be a nice guy to PL forum members that I know of. If that is the case, I'm thinking somewhere it should have said "I do this as a hobby and favor. Do not depend on me." The fact is, there are lots of people who DID depend on him.

I'm not pissed off at Andrew. Disappointed that he let the supply run out yes. Do you think I am the only one that is in a bit of a bind because there are now no drivers available?

[edison]

I agree Phredy1, I never had the idea that he sells the flexmods to do us all a favour. Although i think from bussiness point of view when you building and selling lasers commercially you should never put yourself in a position where you depend on a supplier.
Of course its impossible to make Neutrics or PBS cubes yourself but with a thing such as a driver you can develop it your self so you have control of your stock.

Dr lava doesn,t owe us anything at all he did a great job by developing a driver for the hobbymarket. The hobbymarket and bussiness market aren,t de same thing. Prices are lower in the hobbymarket and profit is low. Groupbuy,s is the only way to make it interesting for a bussiness to sell products in the hobbymarket.

The mistake that some people make is to rely on a hobbyist. Sure i can get my parts machined by a hobbyist but you can,t expect them to deliver the same service as company.

Dr lava jumped in the gap that was in the hobbymarket and that gap was called high side driver. The flexmod is already on the market for a few years but no one decided to come with an equil product to compete with DRlava. Since they are out of stock people start complaining? Get of your lazy ass and develop one of your own

I,m looking forward to see the new driver from Solarfire.


Andythemechanic is also doing a groupbuy for both a LD driver and Tec driver.

http://www.laserfreak.net/forum/view...p?f=44&t=49839

They will soon be ready.

[Phredy1]

I agree Phredy1, I never had the idea that he sells the flexmods to do us all a favour. Although i think from bussiness point of view when you building and selling lasers commercially you should never put yourself in a position where you depend on a supplier.

Not all of us here are electronic technicians. If I had the ability to design circuits I would have all the drivers I need. And, not everyone here does this as a hobby. I am a hobbyist, but a friend of mine that also needs drivers is professional.

@Chad: the link for the teamwavelength driver - it's TTL or I would have ordered some