Hey guys
Thought I'd let you know of some of my results with these diodes..
My two, purchased from the same seller on ebay netted two
combination Violet/Red/IR diodes.
Both started threshold at about 22 and 27ma both output 22mW at 42ma..
I didnt push them much higher .. I figured these as low powered units and
from Spec and I's previous experience with the low powered units. so,
I didnt go any further as they will NOT live long at this level.
Altho, They would be very comfortable at around 7 to 12mW CW out.
Remember these are pulsed diodes and we are them using CW.
As Pulse wouldnt be brighter anyhow.
So anyhow, Back in November when Spec came down to my place to put
together the first pointer and module, we had pretty much the same result
except with those diodes threshold was a bit higher (about 32ma)
which netted about 25 to 35mW easily from those diodes (they were from burners)..
We didnt push these as things were getting expensive and our previous failure
of getting the reader diodes to work without destruction made us weary.
So we stopped there knowing at least we had something worthwhile.
During our experiments we thought we had gotten a bad diode and scrapped
it (placed in the junk diode bin for later use) and another diode
that went bye-bye during our tests was also placed in that bin.
Well, after reading Robins post on alt.laser descibing his results with a diode that was presumably bad
and seemingly coming back to life at a much higher threshold.
So, I decided to pull out one of those diodes that was thought bad.
And after mounting, I ramped the current up past the old threshold of around 33ma
to about 45 and noticed that the diode was getting just a bit brighter , than
after hitting about 70ma it started to lase again..wow, unbelievable.
It was actually working again so I chatted with Spec to tell him the result
afterall it was his diode..so anyway he asked me to ramp it up higher without fear of COD
so I did..at about 115 ma I got 16mw out..
so to continue in the sake of science I ramped it up to 180ma and got a return of 30mW..
while watching the current meter approaching 200ma the diode went out like a light..
I didnt get to see at what mW it died at but still..It was a surprise to say the least..
the diode actually lived again after we had thought for sure it was dead..
So there you go,.If by chance you think your diode is kaput,.
unlike other types of diodes which just draw more current and got hot.
Try it again.
Last edited by marconi; 04-01-2007 at 23:10.
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