iinteresting can you post some details??
Senior Member
iinteresting can you post some details??
Eat Sleep Lase Repeat
Senior Member
Indeed, i just PM'ed McCarrot and now i see this post. I agree... very interesting....Originally Posted by andy_con
I didn't fail !
I just found out 10,000 ways that didn't work.
Senior Member
Demitry, I hope you dont mind I have taken your picture to point out the driver.
Bu the funny thing is you allready have this driver in your projector powering the KVANT.
The price is approx 250 euro for the 4ch version, this sounds allot of money, but if you take a quality positive drive driver(No offence but i not talking about Flexdrive or Die4drive as these drivers have little to No protection and are negitve drive) like Marcos this driver costs 50 euro each x 4 = 200 euro, then you need a die4chill a 50 euro = 250 euro, but then you have 5 seperate PCB's in you case.
Senior Member
That certainly looks like a very nice driver to have. But one of the goals was to be able to make this laser without spending as much as buying a new unit. Mine is almost finished ,with exception of aligning, and have yet to burst the $250 mark. This was in the original post. This was intended to help others to be able to create a good laser at a very attractive price- given they can do a little machining and cobble a few parts. Just trying to get others involved building things.
You are the only one that can make your dreams come true....and the only one that can stop them...A.M. Dietrich
Senior Member
that is a nice driver, but i would rather insulate each diode and use lasorbs due to cost
Eat Sleep Lase Repeat
Reliability? That's what the lasorbs are there for. Having extra drivers doesn't buy you anything in terms of reliability. If anything, they add more components that could fail. (Though I agree that I've never seen a driver fail, so it's not a likely occurrence in any event.)
The only way you're going to blow a diode on this thing is during construction. Once it's assembled, aligned, and tested, you don't touch the internals again. So how is a diode supposed to fail, especially once you have the lasorbs installed?
Ok, maybe if you're greedy and you push each diode to 350 mw you might have a problem. But that's just stupid, and having extra drivers won't save you if you do that.
Running each diode at a normal current with a common driver and a current-balancing resistor works extremely well. And the lasorbs give you protection from the stray static shock that might otherwise kill a diode.
Adding separate drivers might allow you to tweak the current up or down on the diodes a bit, but that doesn't do anything for reliability. More to the point, is it really worth the extra cost in drivers just to get a few 10's of mw extra out of some of the diodes?
Adam
Senior Member
@McCarrot: Ofcourse i don't mind if someone uses my pictures, i post them out in the open, glad it's there, use it when you need it ! My HD is filled with pictures of people of here, containing pics of builts, 4 diode setups, ally blocks that people made etc. So no problem.
Agreed with the others, i also want to built a nice red but cost efficient. I know "quality-minded" people are always talking about flexmods and die4drives as less and stuff like that. I have had lots of fun with Robin's drivers and also have ordered 2 flexmods from dr lava (will have to try those).
If i blow i diode, heck, too bad and i'll replace it. At 5-10 dollars each, i can blow a lot until i reach 250 dollars.
If you are selling a setup to someone that isn't able to built it themselves as a shop, like you are then i can understand you want a nice driver with stability and stuff. I know you yourself blew some diodes too, so can understand the stability point you are making from that point of view.
But i like the idea and vision that Mecheng3 had with this thread: let's all built together and share ideas and keep costs down to a minimum. I like that a lot in fact. Andy has helped me with terrific holders i will use and with the info here i hope to throw something together that will work.
So i think there are 2 streams here clashing together: DIY at low cost and DIY but with options to sell it as (semi) professional gear and it is no problem if it's a little more, as long as it's cheaper than the big boys in the market (being Kvant, Laserwave etc...)
I didn't fail !
I just found out 10,000 ways that didn't work.
This thread will provide me a little inspiration to proto up a common cathode driver when I get a few other projects cleared off my plate.. Maybe in a month or so.
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the thinking behind my post was running lots of diodes from one driving means the driver will need to dish out a fair bit of power, i then suspect it will need cooling and there is a greater risk of it dying. (just assumtion)
this is why im using lots of drivers.
also lasorbs wont automatically make the diode last long and protect from everythng.
im no expert its just how im doing it.
Eat Sleep Lase Repeat
Senior Member
I do not agree here,
I had several diodes die in the past due to the fact I switched off the 5V PSU and this PSU put out a higher voltage on the driver causing the diode to die (at least I think that was the reason because I didnt disconnected any ILDA cables). Since I had installed the interlock circuit cutting the 5V to the driver I did not had broken diode anymore.
If it was that simple to use a crappy (read driver with no protection) + lasorb to make a good quality driver why do company's including Pangolin do so much effort to build quality drivers.
Lasorb will protect against ESD, not agains crappy drivers, any overvoltage to a driver can still kill your diodes.
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