KES-400A ... Great Beginner LD

Xer0 said:

Ookay, now its to late, anyway... i was sleeping a bit to long  ;D

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We'll get you a better deal through someone here. Hang on a bit.

Peace,
dave

daguin said:

We'll get you a better deal through someone here. Hang on a bit.

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Another point why this community rockz ... Thanks ;D

Just wanted to let you know that my big fat pack of KES' arrived today ;D

Let the experiments begin!

Peace,
dave

Xer0 said:

Just wanted to let you know that my big fat pack of KES' arrived today ;D

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That looks exciting! How much did all that cost and how many sleds are in there?

Oh, and here is a forum that you might find interesting, relating to the KES sleds:

http://www.laserpointerforums.com/forums/YaBB.pl?num=1226827066/8#8

They cost me 3x10 + 15 shipping = 45$ / 36€ for 9 sleds.
had great luck @eBay; even if it took a while to get the seller shipping it with cheap flat rate envelope instead of ups :
thinking of selling max 3 of these cuz they are so much ... but probably i will just keep em all ;D

Xer0 said:

They cost me 3x10 + 15 shipping = 45$ / 36€ for 9 sleds.
had great luck @eBay; even if it took a while to get the seller shipping it with cheap flat rate envelope instead of ups   :
thinking of selling max 3 of these cuz they are so much ... but probably i will just keep em all  ;D

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That's an excellent price! Don't sell too many. From personal experience, they fry easliy and you'll probably need replacements. Have fun! And make sure to look at that link I gave you... it's pretty cool.

-Jakob

Yeah... was playing around:







Need to get some parts to try the magenta mod ... at least the resistor ;D

Xer0 said:

Yeah... was playing around, just - pics to come!  

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Yeah! Post `em up ASAP I can't wait to see!

First Sled, First Test... and (at least) the 405 works!

But sadly, just after that, i took my phone which was set on timer to look at the picture and in this moment i pushed the cables accidentaly and shortened the driver out. while beeing happy that my cam has catched the laser pulse (i quivered while trying to hit the pins with thin straight wires) i noticed a sizzling sound, looked up and saw lots of smoke - and the poti of the ddl driver was glowing red! great spectacle but now i need an new driver

Xer0 said:

First Sled, First Test... and (at least) the 405 works!

But sadly, just after that, i took my phone which was set on timer to look at the picture and in this moment i pushed the cables accidentaly and shortened the driver out. while beeing happy that my cam has catched the laser pulse (i quivered while trying to hit the pins with thin straight wires) i noticed a sizzling sound, looked up and saw lots of smoke - and the poti of the ddl driver was glowing red! great spectacle but now i need an new driver  

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Nice pictures! I see that you have been experimenting with the optics from the sled! They're fun to mess with aren't they . And your poor drive :'(... It sounds like you full-out killed it! You know that you're supposed to have all connections fully soldered before turning on the power, right? Good luck with your next drivers !

-Jakob

Ah, good old KES-400A, good times..

FireMyLaser said:

Ah, good old KES-400A, good times..

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Now the world has moved onto lasers with 20 times the power ! I still like the KES-400A though... just because of the red and violet in one diode. Imagine the same idea of a KES diode in a modern sled, except the violet output is at 8x strength and the red output is at LPC strength... That would be awesome!

Yep, I just two KES sleds from Daguin recently and I just ordered 12 from Ebay ("broken" sleds, but I hope the diodes work). Anyway, I'll post pics of a magenta laser if all goes well. Maybe I'll build it today... right now in fact.

Alexizupinhea said:

Yep, I just two KES sleds from Daguin recently and I just ordered 12 from Ebay ("broken" sleds, but I hope the diodes work). Anyway, I'll post pics of a magenta laser if all goes well. Maybe I'll build it today... right now in fact.

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Nice! The two KES sled from daguin will definitely work for red and probably both work for violet. But the 12 sleds from eBay might be a bit different. When they are listed as "broken" or "as is", they tend to be the sleds extracted from disfunctional PS3 drives (with which they are replaced with brand new sleds).

I have found that all of these sleds will work for red, but only about half will work for violet. So unless you get lucky, do not expectmore than six of these sleds to work for violet. But six violet diodes is still a lot! And you will still have six weak red diodes to expriment with! (I personally like having bad diodes to experiment with because it's not that big of a deal if you break them).

Some steps/precautions to take:

-If you are a beginner, I suggest extracting all of the diodes from the sleds before operating any of them.

-Then, quickly test each diode's red and violet lead with about 25mA of current at around 4-5V.

-This will let you see what is operational in each diode without having to change voltage to test red/violet and not risking damaging the red diode (as 4V is only one volt above what it should be run at).

-Put all of the diodes that work for only red in one pile, and all of the diodes that work for violet in the other.

-Now you know which diodes to be careful with, and which ones you can experiment with!

Have fun!

-Jakob

P.S. Post up some pictures of your experimentation!

pianoman2011 said:

[quote author=Alexizupinhea link=1234323060/32#45 date=1237741405]Yep, I just two KES sleds from Daguin recently and I just ordered 12 from Ebay ("broken" sleds, but I hope the diodes work). Anyway, I'll post pics of a magenta laser if all goes well. Maybe I'll build it today... right now in fact.

Click to expand...

Nice! The two KES sled from daguin will definitely work for red and probably both work for violet. But the 12 sleds from eBay might be a bit different. When they are listed as "broken" or "as is", they tend to be the sleds extracted from disfunctional PS3 drives (with which they are replaced with brand new sleds).

I have found that all of these sleds will work for red, but only about half will work for violet. So unless you get lucky, do not expectmore than six of these sleds to work for violet. But six violet diodes is still a lot! And you will still have six weak red diodes to expriment with! (I personally like having bad diodes to experiment with because it's not that big of a deal if you break them).

Some steps/precautions to take:

-If you are a beginner, I suggest extracting all of the diodes from the sleds before operating any of them.

-Then, quickly test each diode's red and violet lead with about 25mA of current at around 4-5V.

-This will let you see what is operational in each diode without having to change voltage to test red/violet and not risking damaging the red diode [highlight](as 4V is only one volt above what it should be run at)[/highlight].

-Put all of the diodes that work for only red in one pile, and all of the diodes that work for violet in the other.

-Now you know which diodes to be careful with, and which ones you can experiment with!

Have fun!

-Jakob

P.S. Post up some pictures of your experimentation![/quote]
Yep, that is one volt too many, I really don't recommend it, the current will go through the roof. You don't need to test each diode quickly, take your time. A DDL driver set to 15-10mA for red and 30-40mA for blu should do fine. Put a 2000 ohm resistor across the capacitor on the driver and extend the the leads from the driver to the diode with wires and SOLDER onto each diode you're testing. It will take time, but it is a good way to test the diodes. Also a recommended way of properly set the blu diodes is to carefully turn up the current till it's lasing threshold, then add 10mA to that for a long good life.