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Registered Member #99
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 06:10PM
Location: florida, usa
Posts: 637
Electroholic wrote ...
nice, board looks good, too. you can probably sell these.
Hello, thanks for the the kind words, and the help! I made a few adjustments to allow better placement of heatsinks on the sense resistors as well as capacitors on the input to the cooling fan...I will give it a couple more days and then order some boards! Matt
Registered Member #99
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 06:10PM
Location: florida, usa
Posts: 637
Hello all, Ive been busy with the driver. I now have a nice driver built with expresspcb and all the parts soldered on. Runs nice and smooth. Looks pretty sharp too! I will post some pics in a few days of it. Stay tuned! Success! Thanks to all those that helped out! REALLY wouldnt have got it working without you guys, and now I know how to use op-amps. Now I need to test it out. How do I look for spikes and make sure this thing is behaving? I can clearly see the current stays put. (Using a 0.1ohm shunt resistor). But how to look for spikes and whatnot? Scope it? I have just a very old basic 10MHZ scope. Should I just turn it on and off a few times while looking at the output on the scope? Matt
Registered Member #56
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:02AM
Location: Southern Califorina, USA
Posts: 2445
Yes, very nice! Glad you got it working, those diodes you have are quite awesome. Sorry I never managed to get a wavelength reading off of the one you sent me, the only OSA we had in the lab needed a fiber coupled source and I never had time to fiber couple your diode. I still think that it is in the 1.5u region of far IR, because it goes strait through the IR blocker in my camera , although it is very possible that it is just really bright.
I have top secret plans for a buck converter based controller for them diode bars, I am hoping to start with a atx psu board and use the 12v line to feed a TEC (PWMed using a low RDS mosfet) and the 5v line through a buck converter to give about 100a at 2-3v. We will see how far I get, but the new gate driver chips with an integrated synchronous rectifier driver really make the power section of the supply heck of a lot simpler than starting from scratch.
Registered Member #30
Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706
Well, in the few ATXs I've taken apart, it looks like the 3.3V already is derived from the 5V rail with a buck converter. So I guess you could just reuse that buck converter for your laser driver.
Registered Member #99
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 06:10PM
Location: florida, usa
Posts: 637
Thanks for the kind words! I must confess, expresspcb made them, not me. I just laid the board out with their software, and soldered the parts on. I like the shiny traces they make!
That laser supply sounds neat! 2volts at 100amps ought to bring one of your lasers into full power right? Youll need to take pictures of that and some video. Ive seen the flatpac supplies used as laser drivers, but they are the batmod versions. I never see those type on ebay, and suspect them to be $$$. They allow you to control current with just a trimpot voltage divider! Would have made things so much easier for me...
This driver ought to be good for up to 15 amps. The limiting factor being the screw terminals being rated for 15amps max. Larger heatsinks on the sense resistors and FETs would be all that is needed to run that high.
I was thinking about adding some more protection for it. Any ideas as to what? I havent tested its behavior, but have hooked up numerous laser diodes to it. I would connect the laser diodes to the supply with it powered down, and then power up. Adjust current up to 4 amps, and then disconnect power from the board. (flatpac still powered up). I would then connect/disconnect the laser driver to the flatpac. ( I was trying to kill a laser ). So far, the lasers I tried all seem to be running just fine. I assume there are no spikes at turn on/off.
Registered Member #56
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:02AM
Location: Southern Califorina, USA
Posts: 2445
The 3.3v line in most atx PSU's is usually not rated for any considerbla power (maybe 100w on a good supply), thus making my own buck converter to replace it
And yeah, I have measured my diodes putting out 70w(!!!) at 90a imput current (as high as my ancient linear regulated 10v/100a supply goes now that all of the connections are all corroded). I am not sure that I managed to take any video, but I managed to get a few soic chips to burst into flames by holding them in front of the laser for a few seconds.
Hehe I wonder if I can write the design of that supply off as a project for school somewhere...
BTW, there a few pictures on my 'high power laser diode mounting fun' (or something of that nature) thread elsewhere in the em radiation forum.
Registered Member #99
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 06:10PM
Location: florida, usa
Posts: 637
... wrote ...
The 3.3v line in most atx PSU's is usually not rated for any considerbla power (maybe 100w on a good supply), thus making my own buck converter to replace it
And yeah, I have measured my diodes putting out 70w(!!!) at 90a imput current (as high as my ancient linear regulated 10v/100a supply goes now that all of the connections are all corroded). I am not sure that I managed to take any video, but I managed to get a few soic chips to burst into flames by holding them in front of the laser for a few seconds.
Hehe I wonder if I can write the design of that supply off as a project for school somewhere...
BTW, there a few pictures on my 'high power laser diode mounting fun' (or something of that nature) thread elsewhere in the em radiation forum.
Poor little chips! haha, Ive done the same...Took my dead fets and such and punished them for failing on me! Boy do they burn when a focused IR laser gets them at 3watts! I just got a used fiber coupled laser from ebay. Its a coherent f6. The seller stated it to be an 838nm 2 watt max laser, but its part number calls it an 808nm 2.4watt laser! Strange, it was tested by Heruur (laser seller on ebay) as being 838nm... I also tested one of my c mounts to destruction with my new driver. It finally died somewhere past 6 amps. I beleive it was about 6.5amps that it survived till! I was very impressed to see it keep charring wood when it was near 6amps...Not bad, huh? If only schools let us get credit for our projects...Mine might if it were some microcontroller or computer program. (My EE school SUCKS!)....Id love to just pull one of my many projects out of my @ss and present it for my senior design project! Matt
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High Current Laser Diode PSU
