Damn.
I was powering up a laser diode today. Had the oscilloscope hooked up to look at the photodiode’s measurement of the output. Turned on the waveform generator to modulate the current. So far so good, right?
Apparently if you over-voltage the inputs, the wee beasties can pop.
See, I knew this. I’m not sure how it happened exactly, but I’m pretty sure the function generator got 5Vp-p instead of 2Vp-p. Which is unfortunate. In the I-just-toasted-a-laser kind of sense.
Update: I have been informed by a co-worker (EE guy) that the function generator defaults at 5Vp-p. So, mystery solved. In a hilarious twist proving that the universe is not without some over-arching sick sense of humor, my pet screen-name for him was/is… Rectified Diode.
Damn.
How is my day going, you ask?
No actual crap was used in this posting.
****
Elderly man shoots and kills home intruder.
Good. For. Him.
I sure hope he doesn’t run afoul of Chicago’s ridiculous handgun ban. Handgun bans are the stupidest thing I ever heard of. Let me make a small observation… in spite of handgun’s illegality… the intruder was armed with a handgun. How would that law have helped this old man and his wife? Not one tiny bit.
You know, a box of chocolates that looked like those would make a hilarious gag gift.
So, do they take the cost of the cooked laser out of your paycheck?
Yikes, LK…. That sounds really bad. Sorry your day is so… um…. Hmmm… what’s the word I’m looking for here??
I can make you an earring, you know
As for the elderly couple, there is already word that several lawyers will take their case pro bono if it comes down to Shitcago pressing charges. If anything, this will serve to push harder to take down the ban. I’m sure the incident made news in the SCOTUS case going on right now.
Yep. LK – next time put a resistor in series with the diode, and you’ll have waaaay smoother control of diode current.
Better yet, build an adjustable constant-current source and drive the diode from that. Give me the “typical” desired forward current and I’ll give you a design. They’re trivial.
I’ve popped one myself, btw. Its easy to do.
…and remind me to tell you the story of “The optocoupler that just went away.” someday.
Rectified Diode has got it under control (so far as I know). I let him deal with this whole fiction that electrons exist and all. I can’t see ‘em so I don’t believe in ‘em.
All I know is by magic if turn a knob faeries in the aether make things go other places.
I will ask you that story indeed.
It’s not the most expensive thing I’ve ever ruined. That was an obscenely expensive one-of-a-pair in existence CCD chip I was working on and I thought I was properly grounded. Whups. Felt really ill after that one. Six beers went bye-bye in something less than an hour and then I got serious about drinking.
Yep. Letting the smoke out of expensive R&D parts can be traumatic.
But it could have been worse….
Yes, such as three hours before that when my chair caught the cord to the oscilloscope and caused it to crash to the floor from a 5 foot height.
The case is a bit munged up and the printer keeps making this “thuk… thuk… thuk…” noise but otherwise it is a-scopin’.
Yeouch!
I bet that was one of those heart-stopping moments!
Reminds me of the time my brother and I were moving my One-year-old $1000 36″ Sony VEGA tube TV (all 237 lbs of it!) and dropped it – no shit – onto the concrete patio in front of Mom’s house front door.
My first and only thought was, “Well, that’s the end of that TV”. There was simply no way a TV could take that kind of shock, I thought.
We went ahead and plugged it in – just to see the fireworks.
The thing worked – and still works. Perfectly. I was stunned.