Continue to Site

Welcome to our site!

Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

  • Welcome to our site! Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

Simple Way to Drive 3 volt Laser Module?

Status
Not open for further replies.

JonSea

Well-Known Member
Most Helpful Member
I bought some cheap 3 volt laser line generator modules. My supplier was out of 5 volt units. I want to run them off a 5 volt USB power bank.

The laser module draws 20mA at 3 volts. It seems lile just adding an LED in series drops about 2.2 volts, and if the laser module is happy with sligbtly less than 3 volts, I'll have a pretty simple solution.


The reason for the laser line generator is interesting. When I was at pbysical therapy post knee replacement, I overheard my therapist talking to a gentlemen with Parkinsons Disease who was freezing in his gait. He'd take a step, then be unable to take the next step.

I had heard years ago that projecting a laser line to give people suffering like a target for the next step worked well. I asked my therapist of this technique was still used. Yes, he said, and they wanted to try it, but with the cost of laser being over $200, they hadn't tried it yet.

Crazy. i had just purchased a "good" line generator for 5 bucks. I quickly whipped something together for my next appointment. The feedback was my collection of parts really improved this guy's walking. Thst felt pretty good amd I made a second module to help another gentlrman.
 
With the crazy prices these days, why not use **broken link removed**. And well done on your initiative.

Mike.
 
Hmmm. I do have some DC-DC converter modules like Mike linked. It's almost) as cheap as an LED. Thanks for the reminder.
 
The laser module draws 20mA at 3 volts.
With that in mind 5 volts - 3 volts = 2 volts / 20 mA = 100 Ohms. Just place a 100 Ohm current limiting resistor in series with your load (LASER). Wouldn't that work?

Ron
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest threads

New Articles From Microcontroller Tips

Back
Top