Recent content by ChuangTzu

Q-tripling?

Just because you're doing it at home, doesn't mean you're using household items.  It would probably be difficult, but far from unachievable.  All the reagents can be bought readily.  The reaction is of the "mix and wait" type.  The hardest thing would be designing and building the mini...

I'm still pretty sure you're talking about potassium DIhydrogen phosphate (KDP or KH2PO4).  Potassium dideuterium phosphate is KD*P (KD2PO4).  KD*P is what is usually used in non-linear optics.   Either crystal would be somewhat easy to make but KD*P would be more expensive because you would...

That is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you.

Yeah, it's not polarized as it's lacking a Brewster window, so I would expect random polarization.  As it is, it's partially polarized with the direction of partial polarization "rocking" back and forth or perhaps rotating--I didn't have time to look at it long enough to explore it more deeply...

While playing with a HeNe laser, some polarizers and quarter wave plates, and a photometer at work today, I noticed that the polarization of the output beam is not stable.   The intensity of light output of the beam is constant at 1.25mW, however the primary direction of polarization seems to...

I thought 655nm was used to read DVD disks...   Why would there be an IR filter if it's an IR diode? No camera, or I'd post a pic. :/

I just took apart a Toshiba DVD/CDRW drive from a laptop.  I haven't been able to find the pinout for this diode.  It's rectangular with rounded edges and has 12(!) pins arranged as so                  x x x x x                x             o                  x x x x x where the o pin is...

That's exactly how I fried this one.  It was lasing, the leads shorted for millisecond, and when it flashed back on it was just an LED.

Well, I guess if everyone will toast n diodes in their life, I can now look forward to only n-1 :). As a friend of mine says, you can't learn anything without breaking something.

Of course you can build DC-DC converters that input and output any voltage.  I don't know about a hex schmitt-trigger chip but I guess I'll either have to build a DC-DC circuit or modify the battery compartment to hold different batteries.   :) I have a MSc in Physics, btw.  :P

In the writeup at the LED Museum, it states that the original driver was modified. I was assuming that was true for the sake of discussion. Of course, you may be right.

No one has any ideas? Or even wants to take a guess? I guess I'll just have to clear the board and try to fit my own driver on it. It's tiny.

Well, I pulled the LED off and measured the voltage at the terminals. It's the same as the battery: 1.5V. This means the circuit will not regulate the current up to the point where it raises the voltage above that of the supply, even for heavy loads. It will possibly down regulate it. So how...

Looks like the diode is seeing 1.16V now that the battery is down to 1.4V. I'm measuring at the solder patches marked "LED+" and "LED-".