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Good choice, Abray. Against the blue LED, my pair of goggles similar to the NOVA pair provided outstanding protection; all of the blue light was absorbed. As far as green protection, you can't get any better for $50. They make the dot of a 100mW greenie look like a faint little orange dot that...

No problem, Abray. :) Yes, according to the graph those aren't too bad. They should protect at OD 3-4 according to the graph. And for $40 the price is right. They also have a very high VLT, since they are clear. If they do protect as well as the spectrometer plot shows, these could be the...

LOL, Timelord! Abray - as BlueFusion suggested, unless you plan on doing any close up work (like burning) with your Blu-Ray laser, goggles probably aren't necessary. However, if you are in any situation where you could possibly receive a reflection or direct hit, you'll need goggles. My...

Nice, Daedal! It's great to see the price dropping rapidly. Who knows, at this rate we may be able to get them at the same price as SenKat's diodes in about 2 or 3 more group buys. ;D

Thanks, Zarniwoop. Looks like I'll be placing a 1 ohm resistor to measure current. I also tested my second circuit, and it works fine! I'm off to build my third, and hopefully final, circuit. :D

True, true. My bad. It is only in reverse. :P I think that my first circuit is doing pretty well. And yes, the LM317 pins are numbered incorrectly in Daedal's diagram. I checked 2 or 3 datasheets to get the correct pinouts before I built it. I built a second circuit yesterday, which I'll have...

IgorT, thanks for the reassurance. Yesterday afternoon I discovered that I did test the circuit with the load in parallel to the 1N4001. I looked at the circuit diagram and discovered that it should be in series with load, as you said. I think my circuit is fine for now. Thanks again! :)

Good news! I had it wired correctly the whole time. I tested it out on an old Rohm diode that I thought I had fried, only to find out that it worked after all. I think that I may have fried the 1N4001, though. When I input ~12.9 volts in I get ~12.9 volts out with no load. I assume that the...

Thanks for the tips and encouragement! I'll recheck the connections and pinouts. Hopefully I can get it working. If I can't get it working, I'll just try to build it again. :)

Another round of quick questions! :P I worked on a circuit between yesterday and today and finally thought I had finished it. When I went to test the circuit, I found that I had miswired/fried both the LM317 and the 1N4001! The output voltage was nearly as high as the input voltage, so I knew...

Hi chimo, Thanks for the heads up! Very nice analogy, as well. Unfortunately, I already bought some stuff from All Electronics, so I'll probably be stuck with using that, short of being ripped off by RadioShack. :-/ I guess I'll use the smallest capacitors I bought. I can use a 50V 47uF cap in...

Thanks for the input. ;) Yeah, that was the plan, in addition to extra caps on the board I was going to solder a cap directly across the laser diode. I remember someone saying that some very expensive, industrial laser diodes are driven through what is essentially a series of capacitors. I was...

Hey guys, I'm about to build Daedal's circuit to drive a Blu-Ray diode, and I wanted to make a few modificiations. I'm going to add a capacitor before the LM317, and an extra cap or two before the laser diode, plus a capacitor soldered directly to the LD. With the extra caps before the LD...

I think that the NoIR ARG goggles will protect extremely well against the Blu-Ray and Blue DPSS wavelengths, and they have a high VLT. You can get a pair for $50 at NOVA. These will filter out the ~405nm wavelength at an OD of around 6.5. This is much more than enough protection at ~10-20mW of...

Re: ***  BluRays again ;)  *** Just paid for 1 more.

Thanks for the info, Mike! I might have to try building one sometime. I always thought that the Dorcy put out only 3.5 Volts or so. It's nice too see it running a Blu-Ray diode, especially with a ~20mW output. :)

Wow! Popping balloons and lighting matches! That's pretty amazing for these little diodes. I'm going to have to buy the rest of the parts to build my own Blu-Ray pretty soon. Hemlock Mike, if you don't mind sharing some info on your Dorcy Mini mod - what extra electronics bits did you have to...

I got mine from ThinkGeek (thinkgeek.com) a few months ago, and I just checked and the shipping from their warehouse in New Jersey to the UK is about $21-23. :( Spencer's online price is $10, but they only ship to the US. :-/

I have one of those, and it's pretty nice. I don't think I'd pay $40 for it, however. I picked mine up for $15. (£7.30)

I've popped in to report that I have received my units. I haven't even opened the box, and probably won't until I have every part and piece of equipment laid out in front of me. I'm really frightened of ESD'ing these. :P It seems that the three units I ordered must be crammed in there pretty...