Use LED flashlight as laser driver?

[Deathyak]

I wanted to make my airsoft AK stockless and just run around shooting from the hip. :D Besides the stock sights don't really work that well lol.

I have a 5mw greenie which runs off 2 aaa and I love it. Its bright enough, but the problem is that it doesn't actually point parallel to the body and its pen shaped.

Laser diode (sku.26885) run at 3 volts, and white LEDs are driven at around 3.3 volts. So for all intensive purposes, could I use an LED driver as the laser driver with a flashlight host? This would make it semi waterproof and fairly easy to mount.

I'm thinking (sku.2992) or something of the like for host.

 

[lolzertank]

I wanted to make my airsoft AK stockless and just run around shooting from the hip. :D Besides the stock sights don't really work that well lol.

I have a 5mw greenie which runs off 2 aaa and I love it. Its bright enough, but the problem is that it doesn't actually point parallel to the body and its pen shaped.

Laser diode (sku.26885) run at 3 volts, and white LEDs are driven at around 3.3 volts. So for all intensive purposes, could I use an LED driver as the laser driver with a flashlight host? This would make it semi waterproof and fairly easy to mount.

I'm thinking (sku.2992) or something of the like for host.

I'm not sure if it will work, but if it does you'll need extra filtering capacitors on the output. Small spikes of power won't kill LEDs, but they will destroy lasers.

 

[LukeA]

I'm not sure if it will work, but if it does you'll need extra filtering capacitors on the output. Small spikes of power won't kill LEDs, but they will destroy lasers.

What kind of spikes will you get from a NiMH AA or other small chemical source?

 

[bshanahan14rulz]

Nickel-plated spikes :p

I just harvested my first laser diode that actually has potential. First few were just practice, useless IR diodes (well, to me who has no source or knowledge of KTP, Nd:YAG, and filters). I even harvested 2 diodes from 2 different laser printers just to find out that they were very low-power IR diodes.

Anyways, this latest one is from an eMachines stock multiburner (NEC). How do I know what current to allow to it and what voltage it drops?