I know what you're saying Meat, but I think you are missing the point of
what I was saying. Any of us on here that are professionally involved in
electronics service, could see the post and the poster for what it was,
and
I really didn't have a problem with him getting his (old) unit going by
tweaking the pot - we've all done it. But by the same token, there are
other
amateurs that come on here to learn, and if they are going to do that,
they
might as well learn properly, as I am sure that you have done over the
years
after your hobbyist start. No one would advocate twiddling with pots that
you don't even know what they do, and in the case of a laser power pot, it
is one of the surest ways to compound whatever the original problem was.
That was all I was trying to say for the benefit of learners who wanted
the
professional take on whether or not it was a good idea to attack this pot
as
a means of diagnosing a bad laser. Just as a matter of interest, we're
about
the same age so have come through the rapid advancement of
microelectronics
together. I don't know about you, but I find it harder and harder to keep
up
as the years roll by. I don't know whether its that the technology is
advancing so fast, or whether I've lost the enthusiasm of youth, but I
seem
to find myself just not wanting to be bothered with it all any more. Was
the
time when I read nothing but technical journals. These days, I get more
out
of reading the newspaper ... ;~)

Arfa



There was a time when I used to regularly buy ETI and Wireless World, then
only looking at them occassionally in a library and then not even that.
First time for years I looked at one in the library recently , forget which
mag, but all it had in it was Spice modelling, or similar simulations, and
not one bit of hands-on anything

--
Diverse Devices, Southampton, England
electronic hints and repair briefs , schematics/manuals list on
http://home.graffiti.net/diverse:graffiti.net/