would this work for regulated power supply.....

I currently have two shitty red <5mw lasers and am fed of of running them from batterys, i was thinking that i might be able to use a power supply from an old computer? they have about 5.3v dc from which i assume is regulated so as not to blow the electronics in the computer.

has anyone tried this?

also what would be the best way to simply reduce the voltage to about 4.5v? would i just use a resistor? (i expect this is blatently obvious hos to do but just wanna be sure)

Re: would this work for regulated power supply....

The power supply in computers NEED to have a significant load in order to work properly. I think that you may need a load on EACH output (including 12V lines). It is tricky, but if you add some resistors, then it should work.

Some more modern supplies also have some sort of status line that has to be connected properly. Do not ask me what "properly" means, though.

Re: would this work for regulated power supply....

hmm.... your right... it does sound that it could be tricky... i think i will stick to cheep nasty 12 for £1 batterys for now... being a poor student i cant afford a proper regulated power supply or alkaline batts heh heh /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif

Re: would this work for regulated power supply....

Easiest way to get a computer PS to work correctly is to stick a load on one of the outputs. I've found that a 20W halogen desk lamp works nicely on the 12V line, and keeps the PS in regulation (Giving me an extra light in the process!). Granted, I do tend to use it for higher loads, but this stops it from going crazy when the load itself is removed.

Also as a sidenote, I'm not gonna give you a telling off, I'm not a moderator or anything, but to save yourself getting into trouble in the future, just try to keep the language a little more reasonable, profanity isn't necessary, and will only likely cause you trouble in the long run.

Re: would this work for regulated power supply....

After you've sorted out enough load to get the supply up (I recall a few watts on the plus 5 did it), try a series diode. You should get about .7 Volts drop, should put you spot on 4.5 V. Somethink like 1N4005.

Doug Owen

Re: would this work for regulated power supply....

sweet, cheers people!

i might give it a try after all /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif