Stumbled across this site today while searching for more info on home-brew lasers and such, caught the bug after watching a kipkay video yesterday(Yes, I'm aware his tutorial is a no-no). Instantly ran to my nearest PC shop and got 3 broken dvd writers(free!) to use for their lasers. Been toying around with those and some rechargeable AA batteries for about 4-5 hours now, successfully burned some electrical tape!
I ended up finding an open-can red laser diode in one of the drives I tossed, luckily I looked through all that stuff again before it made its final trip to the garbage can. I did a quick function test to make sure it worked, then put it in a little sealed container to keep it safe since I hear these open-can diodes are the better ones, and because it has decent length posts on it which would be perfect for me to use on my first build. Just gotta read some tutorials, maybe order a few odds and ends, and I should be ready to play with my new laser. Already have various tools needed, a solder station, solder, solder vacs, etc. I use to modify Honda and Acura ECUs for tuning purposes, so I got the basics down for soldering and such.
I ended up finding an open-can red laser diode in one of the drives I tossed, luckily I looked through all that stuff again before it made its final trip to the garbage can. I did a quick function test to make sure it worked, then put it in a little sealed container to keep it safe since I hear these open-can diodes are the better ones, and because it has decent length posts on it which would be perfect for me to use on my first build. Just gotta read some tutorials, maybe order a few odds and ends, and I should be ready to play with my new laser. Already have various tools needed, a solder station, solder, solder vacs, etc. I use to modify Honda and Acura ECUs for tuning purposes, so I got the basics down for soldering and such.
