Laser batteries

[picrthis]

I was jumping around on various forums today and discovered a post from
LucentOptics saying "DON'T USE TITANIUMS. I don't know what is wrong with those, but they kill Envee's and that Lithiums are 'OK' though"

Does anybody have any insight as to why this might be and if it applies to other Laser brands? (I believe Envee's are made by CNI).

I recently bought the Fusion Canadian Laser and don't want to kill it.

I have several Leadlight & Newwish Lasers too, I wonder if they are affected too?

 

[seanrolsen]

I have used 6 (3 sets) Titaniums in my 200mW newWish from DX.com.

It does seem possible that it is more than my imagination (though I do doubt it) that the laser was never as powerful as it was on the fist day, when it had alkies, titaniums, and lithiums in it. Since then, I have gone through 6 batteries (3 sets) of Titaniums in my 200DX.

I would also like an answer on this.

Thanks,
Sean

 

[SenKat]

The Lithiums are a higher voltage battery - the titaniums I thought were just like ordinary Alkies, as far as the voltage goes - maybe they have a higher current ? I did not test the Titaniums in the new Fusion laser, but I did test out hte Lithiums - and it LIKES them !

 

[senecaripple]

would the lithium batteries shorten the life of the laser?
if not wouldn't be cheaper to get rechargeble batteries?

 

[SenKat]

Not - the lithiums would only shorten the life of the laser if the circuit was not designed to handle the extra input voltage. Almost all greenies can handle the extra juice coming in, because they regulate what goes out, it does not harm the diode. Reds on the other hand, like the Wicked Lasers "Pulsars" will die if you use lithiums, because they are not desinged with diode protection in mind - and do not regulate the power going to the diode.

 

[senecaripple]

thanks, senkat, now where's a good place to pick up some rechargeable lithium batteries?

 

[SenKat]

ah - the RECHARGEABLE lithiums ? MY bad - those can have significantly higher voltage, and could blow the circuit - I thought you were talking about the normal Lithiums Sorry about that. I would check with the manufacturer of any device prior to useing the rechargeable lithiums in anything....

 

[senecaripple]

thanks again senkat for your answers.

 

[SenKat]

thanks again senkat for your answers.

Not sure if "thanks" is really a good choice of words for me I think all I did was make the matter even more confusing - I am sorry about that !

 

[senecaripple]

well, now I know that I cant use regular lithium batteries as they are cost prohibitive for me, and the rechargeble ones will only destroy my lasers. so thanks for clarifying that for me, senkat.

 

[SenKat]

Actually, if this is in refernece to the "fusion" laser by Rick Lee - then send him an email asking him about it...DX would not know the answer, and most ebayers would not care if you burnt up your laser- because It could very well be outside of the warranty for them.

 

[Ashton]

I hate to muddy up the waters more but...

Lithium-Ion or Lithium-polymer? I was hoping to be able to use L-ion in any future lasers, and L-pol seem to be a LOT more efficient in charging and power storage...

 

[Kiessling]

Li-Ion is what most almost all of the currently available Lithium based rechargeable batteries in "current" sizes are as the Li-Poly (as in "polymer") is usually flat. IIRC, that is.
bernhard

 

[VidPro]

i cant understand why they would think titaniums would be a bigger problem than Lithiums, lithiums seems to hold thier higher voltages for longer than "titaniums"

other useless stuff:
i have used li-ion with both green and red UNMODIFIED modules. it was actually the green that had the biggest problem with the extra voltage. it all depends on the curcuit thing, and the feedback (if any) . and when you modify the thing you change things up a lot.
it was the green that i HAD to add in resistance to keep from a meltdown from the li-ion juice, the "regulator" curcuit was adequitly doing its job, but with to much juice , the regulator was taking the heat.
i assume with the red there might already HAVE TO be more change of the initial voltages, to get to the diodes voltage. (umm what are the intial diode gate voltages?)
anyways again, these were unmodified , intended to run at the spec they operated at.

best way to tell any of that stuff, is to drive it up with a power supply, and see where you get.
in one situation it was not the emitter going balistic, it was the curcuit driving it to correct values. completly different from when you crank up the driver to hit the emitter with more power.

mabey the "titanium" warning was so they wouldnt have to refund some guy whos overly juiced $400 laser went belly up. if they were worried about titanium, one might worry about lithium, and certannly wouldnt want to do li-ion without checking and testing.

i assume that like any emitting diode thing, its going to be the relative time before failure, not an immediate death, when overdriven most of the emitting things fail after long periods of time. time that a AVERAGE laser user might not ever get to.

i think my green module is getting a bit dimmer, but i use it every night.

 

[seanrolsen]

What if, and this is a big "what if", you used only ONE 3.6v lithium ion AAA and a spacer (fake AAA w/ contacts). You could even make your own spacer, and possibly fit it with a resister, or pot or something.

I don't know if it would be worth it, but if it is, might be something to look into, no?

I have been pushing for lithiums to show up on DX.com as well, so we shall see if we get lucky with either DX or the spacer idea.

Hope this either helps, or at least inspires someone to come up with a good idea.

Thanks,
Sean

 

[SenKat]

You8 could do that - as long as you added in a resistor to lower the juice a tad bit....the Dorcy metal gear mod I did uses 3 AAA batteries - for alkies, that is 4.5 volts going into the diode if you left it unmodified - it has a 1 Ohm resistor in series, and lowers the voltage down to acceptable levels to use straight away like that if you like for a red. I can see using a Li-ion rechargable and a spacer - I would most likely like a 1-10 Ohm resistor inline with the battery if you do that so it'll kinda help out by not smokin the diode if the voltage hits the dreaded 4.2 volts that some li-ion rechargables do....

 

[seanrolsen]

Great!

Lets do it!

I just need to know where I can get a single resister, and what kind I need. RadioShack prolly wont have what I need...

 

[SenKat]

Is there a "Fry's" Electronics near you ? They have EVERYTHING ! Rat shack has most of their useful parts on special order only - when I went in a few months ago asking for solder flux - they were scratching their heads and asking me what it was - half the folks in the stores near me do not even know the difference between a resistor and a capacitor - Tandy has gone WAY downhill from what I remember....sigh....

 

[Kenom]

I used to work there and it amazes me how little they have. Guys just look at me like "Dude why are you wasting my time. Now dont'cha wanna buy a cellphone or laptop?" I have to go digikey which is a total waste with the minimum order and all.

Whatabout Energizer E2 rechargables??

 

[SenKat]

Are the E2 REchargables the NiMh ? I forget