hello everybody!
I read a few posts mentioning you have to wait a certain number of posts till you can post live links, and a few more till you can post images. I know that when asking questions about drivers, pictures are important, so…luckily I have a blog to put it up on!
Here’s the deal; I bought and received a sony diode and axis module from stonetek. I built the driver in anticipation, but I’m a bit hesitant to “just plug it in”
Here are a few questions:
1)what is the intended input voltage (when using this with a sony 16x diode)
2)I have heard i should set the Ma to between 160 and 250, with the lower settings being safer for diode life
3)My capacitor doesn’t look like anyone else’s How do I determine the correct polarity of it?
4)after testing the setup for a while, what is the proper procedure to discharge the capacitor?
Here is an overview of the breadboard
here is a closeup
here is a closeup of the capacitor
Thanks a lot guys! I’m really excited to have yet another geeky, expensive, hobby that’s difficult to explain to women!
well 3 volts will fire it up
Hey Justin, thanks a lot!
Hopefully i’ll get the right Cap and get this thing burning tonight!
Ok, here’s what I have found through searching on laserpointerforums and the googles.
(these answers refer to my four questions posted above)
1) the lm317 needs 6 volts to work properly. That is usually accomplished by using 6 or more nimh AA batteries. you can also use 2 cr123 batteries or a DC power supply.
2) For the specific diode I have, this seems to be true 160 to 250. If it is approaching 250, then a short duty cycle or heatsinking (or both) might be a good idea.
3) After buying a few more capacitors, I realized that the arrows on the cap are pointing to the negative terminal. This seems ridiculously obvious right now, but it wasn’t initially.
4) One way to discharge the capacitor is to connect the two leads together. I then measure it with the multimeter to ensure it’s close to 0.
I hope that helps someone!