Recent content by jollymolly

The green laser is now projecting a faint red light, this is infrared correct? and dangerous. Does this mean it is always emitting infrared. really scary now that I think about it.

What? But I though 5mW lasers were safe aslong as you don't look at them directly.

Just received the green laser. Holymoly it is bright ! my eyes hurt that's how bright! Tested it at 3V, current draw was about 0.33A. It says max power <5mW on it and class III Is it dangerous to look at reflection? cause it seems to reflect from many surfaces.

really? My old red laser used about 40mA. Do green lasers need so much more? This page suggests a current of 250mA. I think the arduino could handle that. If not I have access to a bench power supply that I can use. Also how is using a diodes better than just a resistor? will 1n4001 diode...

Damn, Just ordered some laser pointers from amazon and ebay. This one (2x1.5V) and these (3x1.5V) Are they any use? I was going to modulate them through the power supply. Can I use a resistor if I know the current they draw at 3V and 4.5V respectively. for example resistance = 5V-4.5V...

can anyone help?

Had these type of laser pointers. They work on 3 1.5V batteries, I was using 5V from arduino. Could I have burned them out? They still work but brightness has reduced significantly. They were working fine at 5V for a while. Anyway I am now looking for a new laser, many of them use 2 1.5V...

Why are green lasers different? I know they are made using DPSS but how does that affect the driver used? I am currently looking to do some TTL modulation, I think the LM317 or similar driver would be ok but now am not so sure. I am talking about no more than 10KHz.

Thanks, Do laser modules, the ones with a case and two wires coming out have drivers inside? See I thought that inside these laser modules there would a be a 3-pin laser diode and the driver circuit. So are the driver circuits that Bionic-Badger mentioned, used to 'make' the laser module or...

Thanks very informative post, so what kind of drivers do the cheap laser pointers on ebay use? They take three LR41 batteries or two AAA. Does a laser module include the driver? That is what I always assumed.

I believe it is an linear regulator driver using lm317 ? but what does DDL stand for? Also I read that DDL drivers can not modulate lasers fast, thinking above 10kHz. Is this true? if so why is that? PS: what driver do fast modulating laser modules use?

It is not easy finding such a thing. Even if I do it is very likely to have only a few lines like in the picture below. I am leaning towards making my own now, do you think flexible acrylic mirrors will work?

I looked into polygon scanners but they are usually one line scanners since each facet is at the same angle. The one in the picture the angles have been adjusted to create multiple scan lines.

Does anyone know the name of this unit Where can I buy such a thing, I have been told it came out of an old laser printer or bar-code scanner.

Do you guys think I can pwm a 5mW dpss green laser? the aim is to display grayscale images of green.