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As you probably recall, I made a homemade driver from recommended parts. It's an LM317T with a rheostat and just in case resistor then a capacitor and one direcitonal current diode thingy then a LD. So along with the capacitor and diode, I also added in parallel two wires with aligator clamps...

I didn't think that could possibly be right cuz alkaline AAA batteries are 900 to 1,155mah each!  And don't 9 volts technically have 6 alkaline AAAA battery cells in them connected with welded tabs?  And those cells are 625 mah each for a total of 3750 mah.  Though that info was from Wikipedia...

ohhhh I get it. That's a smart way to regulate voltage lol. I dunno how to tell the style of a diode by looking at it but I'll post a pic once my DVD burner comes and I get the diode out of it. I think I do know what you mean by acrylic lense ones though cuz I'm really sure I've seen those. Btw...

I think I will just put it on a 9 volt then. I wish they would have had a 6 x AA case but they only had an 8x one :( I figure with D's I have quite some time before they dropped below 6 volts total but I'll probably just use a 9 volt anyway. I think I have a stripped pop on cap thingy for one...

Well I rigged up your standard do it yourself driver on a breadboard with parts identical to the one in the video from Phazonx in that other post. Another diagram I found elsewhere recommended a 4ohm resistor and his recommended two 10's in parallel for a 5 ohm resistance so I just went with...

oh I get it. Would the "emergency" resistor need to be a higher resistance amount if I were sendin 9V instead of 6V then in order to keep it safe? And why don't they just make pots that don't go to 0 ohms lol.

well now that you mention it, they are just in a different order aren't they lol. So here's a dumb question, why would you add a 4-5 ohm resistor after an adjustable 25 ohm pot?  Couldn't you just turn the pot up 4 ohms? or and for the person who snuck in a post while I was posting this and...

I've been poking around and eventually found 2 conflicting wiring diagrams for driver circuits.  Actually for all I know they do the same thing cuz I dunno advanced components that well.  But otherwise, which one of them is correct. Btw I dunno why he added dual 10 ohm resistors.  Maybe he was...

but have you seen the stuff that one guy built out of bamboo on Gilligan's Island? ;D Darn, I didn't know there were like crystals or whatever in it :( I figured I could build a really big one with normal tools if I had the parts but oh wellz :(

well anyway I think I could make a pretty nice driver that way but my goal was to make it all portable. I could put it in something with more room than a maglite but I still want it to be kinda small. Does anyone know where I can get a really compact (like half a credit card sized or smaller)...

I've noticed a significant lack of build your own diode threads here so I think I already know the answer but I'll still ask :D You know how if you have some tungsten and it's thick enough to not immediately oxidize, you can run current through it and tada, you've got a homemade lightbulb? Or...

don't they have gas in them?  Military lasers and industrial lasers have gases in them.  I thought all lasers just put voltage to a gas and the current makes it emits photons.  But for all I know, they got ground up unicorn horns in em lol.  I'm more of an LED knowledgeable person myself actually :P

Well I guess regulating the voltage to regulate current is kinda indirect. You know that gives me an idea.  Would it run at peak power without risking damage and be really efficient with the most steady output if I got it up to like 600 volts but limited it to the correct current?  I think then...

I'm no electrician but that doesn't make sense. If I'm powering a small light bulb off a car battery, it doesn't matter that it's capable of 900 or so amps. It's 12 volts so the current is determined by the resistance of the bulb. The only way more current would flow through it is if the...

I'm doing a variation of a minimag maglite with a DVD diode with case in place of the bulb project. I'm using the recommended 12X30mm brass case from mfgcn.com. They have specs for basically every case BUT the 650nm 5mw one I ordered. Not that the specs really mention this either though lol...