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A while ago I ordrered two of those cheap BR lasers with the firm intention of disassembling one of them to see what makes them tick. So I took one of the units I received yesterday from "Lutong Shipping Ltd" in Kowloon, HK and after a quick test to see if it worked, I proceeded to take it apart.
Extraction:
Ok folks so this isn't going to be nice! my first attempt at disassembling the pen was to gently extract the guts of the laser so that I could perhaps reuse the newwish style host for another project... NOT!
Trying to remove the silver end cap, the rubber band I had put on it slipped and the vise grip gouged thoroughly the cap. Looking down the brass tube, I saw that there are two plastic rings (one around the brass module, one securing the driver board).
No amount of pushing, prodding or pulling loosened the assembly from the tube, and add to that the pushbutton that protrudes way too much to be pressed down all the way, it's almost the fable of the boat in the bottle, how the hell did they get all this stuff in there?
One hint is that all the components seem to be well secured with something like loctite or cyanoacrylate (and a lot of it) . So I resorted to the extreme measure of cutting-off the tube on its entire lenght with a dremel cutting disk. It's a shame bacause I would have recycled that host for one of my 30mW grenies... Oh well. The things we do for science!
Components:
So here's the freed module.
I think I may have damaged the inductor during the extraction (top edge is broken off), but applying 3V and pressing the button gave me a clean beam. The driver circuit is quite small, and has more components than a FlexDrive. The diode looks like a PHR although I haven't been able to see the small etched data matrix barcode on it.
After loosening the front aperture cap of the module, inside it is a single acrylic lens and a spring.
The lens appears to be plano convex or with a positive meniscus, but it's hard to tell even with a magnifying lens. The glass window of the laser diode has a shiny yellow AR coating. Well that's about as far as I can disassemble the unit. Pushing out the diode out of the module would probably break it and wouldn't give me any more details because correct me if I'm wrong but no manufacturer puts markings on the side of diode cases, right?
Performance:
With the bare module, I can do a few power and intensity tests.
Starting with a 3 volt power pack made up of 2 c-cells (3.15v no load). I hope the damaged inductor won't skew my readings but here goes:
Voltage across the diode in operation: 4.65 V
Current flowing though the circuit in operation (between batt. + and spring): 98 mA
The circuit delivers (on the laserbee) about 29 mW of purple photons.
So there you go.
I'd like to compare the guts of this laser with the ones sold by etimeshop... anyone has pictures of the inners of those pens?
Thanks
Robert
Extraction:
Ok folks so this isn't going to be nice! my first attempt at disassembling the pen was to gently extract the guts of the laser so that I could perhaps reuse the newwish style host for another project... NOT!
Trying to remove the silver end cap, the rubber band I had put on it slipped and the vise grip gouged thoroughly the cap. Looking down the brass tube, I saw that there are two plastic rings (one around the brass module, one securing the driver board).
No amount of pushing, prodding or pulling loosened the assembly from the tube, and add to that the pushbutton that protrudes way too much to be pressed down all the way, it's almost the fable of the boat in the bottle, how the hell did they get all this stuff in there?
One hint is that all the components seem to be well secured with something like loctite or cyanoacrylate (and a lot of it) . So I resorted to the extreme measure of cutting-off the tube on its entire lenght with a dremel cutting disk. It's a shame bacause I would have recycled that host for one of my 30mW grenies... Oh well. The things we do for science!
Components:
So here's the freed module.
I think I may have damaged the inductor during the extraction (top edge is broken off), but applying 3V and pressing the button gave me a clean beam. The driver circuit is quite small, and has more components than a FlexDrive. The diode looks like a PHR although I haven't been able to see the small etched data matrix barcode on it.
After loosening the front aperture cap of the module, inside it is a single acrylic lens and a spring.
The lens appears to be plano convex or with a positive meniscus, but it's hard to tell even with a magnifying lens. The glass window of the laser diode has a shiny yellow AR coating. Well that's about as far as I can disassemble the unit. Pushing out the diode out of the module would probably break it and wouldn't give me any more details because correct me if I'm wrong but no manufacturer puts markings on the side of diode cases, right?
Performance:
With the bare module, I can do a few power and intensity tests.
Starting with a 3 volt power pack made up of 2 c-cells (3.15v no load). I hope the damaged inductor won't skew my readings but here goes:
Voltage across the diode in operation: 4.65 V
Current flowing though the circuit in operation (between batt. + and spring): 98 mA
The circuit delivers (on the laserbee) about 29 mW of purple photons.
So there you go.
I'd like to compare the guts of this laser with the ones sold by etimeshop... anyone has pictures of the inners of those pens?
Thanks
Robert
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