PHR-803T for about $20

Spyderz20x6 said:

Oh no! A superlative!
Ya, i think it is the same company.

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Well they are both down by San Diego and now it is clear that they are on the same server.

Digatalet is in New York and Starsurplus is in Temecula, so they are still "up" if you need to order something tonight.

Peace,
dave

Their gone!

I was planning to put my order in for a few tomorrow...you snooze you loose just got a whole new meaning for me.

Aaron636r said:

Their gone!

I was planning to put my order in for a few tomorrow...you snooze you loose just got a whole new meaning for me.

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Would you look at that. Evertek and Geeks came back up at the same time.

Peace,
dave

Aaron636r said:

Their gone!

I was planning to put my order in for a few tomorrow...you snooze you loose just got a whole new meaning for me.

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http://www.starsurplus.com/viewitem.lasso?i=BLK-SD-H802A-DO-R

http://stores.channeladvisor.com/Digitalet/items/item.aspx?itemid=2417759

Daguin...thanks for the info. Did some searching and there is a few places out there who still has them. Just placed an order with Starsurplus for pickup since I have a brother out there who is going to pick them up for me tomorrow.

Aaron636r said:

Daguin...thanks for the info. Did some searching and there is a few places out there who still has them. Just placed an order with Starsurplus for pickup since I have a brother out there who is going to pick them up for me tomorrow.

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Nice. You save yourself about $7 and have an excuse to see your brother.

Peace,
dave

Glaserfan said:

Even a 100mW BluRay is not as visible as a 10mW green. My ~90mW can be seen in the night sky pretty clearly, but nowhere near what my 5mW green looked like..

They can be used a Starpointers above maybe 80mW, but something like the moon will drown them out.

FWIW, if you read back in this thred, one of these diodes has run for WEEKS straight @90mA on only the tiny, stock heatsink. One should last a looong time at 100mA, good for ~90mW My 100mA pointer has been going for over 2 weeks, with LOTS of use, and shows NO signs of deterioration

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Exactly what I needed to hear, thank you. Guess I'll pick up one of rkcstr's fixed 100mA driver boards ( http://rkcstr.googlepages.com/home ) unless anyone has a good reason not too - the cheap price seems like a good deal for my first DIY build. The only thing that concerns me is that it recommends about 7 volts of power. I was hoping to take a real cheap LED flashlight platform as a housing and replace the AAs with two 3.7v lithium ion cells. However, they can be as high as 4.2v each fully charged, so I'm worried I might kill the thing.

From what I've gathered so far, the build process is going to go something like this:
1. Extract diode from drive
2. Solder diode to driver board
3. Solder driver board to power source
4. Assemble into housing

Am I on the right track here? I think I'm missing a way to focus the diode. I've been told I need an Aixiz module which I assume does just that, however I have no idea how to use/install it and my attempts at asking Google have only incited further confusion.


Daguin, thanks for that link. $28 shipped for the drive seems reasonable enough.

DWells55 said:

Exactly what I needed to hear, thank you. Guess I'll pick up one of rkcstr's fixed 100mA driver boards ( http://rkcstr.googlepages.com/home ) unless anyone has a good reason not too - the cheap price seems like a good deal for my first DIY build. The only thing that concerns me is that it recommends about 7 volts of power. I was hoping to take a real cheap LED flashlight platform as a housing and replace the AAs with two 3.7v lithium ion cells. However, they can be as high as 4.2v each fully charged, so I'm worried I might kill the thing.

From what I've gathered so far, the build process is going to go something like this:
1. Extract diode from drive
2. Solder diode to driver board
3. Solder driver board to power source
4. Assemble into housing

Am I on the right track here? I think I'm missing a way to focus the diode. I've been told I need an Aixiz module which I assume does just that, however I have no idea how to use/install it and my attempts at asking Google have only incited further confusion.


Daguin, thanks for that link. $28 shipped for the drive seems reasonable enough.

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You will have no problems with using the Rkcstr driver and 2 3.7V batteries. The Rkcstr is good for up to 16V. The excess voltage is converted to heat. I have run (and am currently running) a Rkcstr driver with THREE 10440's. If you go with only 2 batteries, you should have no heat problems.

In your "steps" make sure that you press the diode into a module (aiXiz, Merideth, homemade, etc.) BEFORE you solder the diode to the board. You are going to need optics with this diode (and anything else you want to have a focused beam from). Trying to press a diode into a housing with the board already attached is damn near impossible.

The link you used was posted by Jake21 yesterday.

Peace,
dave

DWells55 said:

Am I on the right track here? I think I'm missing a way to focus the diode. I've been told I need an Aixiz module which I assume does just that, however I have no idea how to use/install it and my attempts at asking Google have only incited further confusion.

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Dave's right (Daguin), you'll be fine using 2x 3.6V lithiums. The voltages I typically give are MINIMUM voltages, the ABSOLUTE is ~16V because of component ratings, but you really should stay under 12V at the highest to give components some headroom as well as the fact that all those extra volts get converted straight to heat and more heat = bad for the diode.

And, as he said, make sure you press the diode into the Aixiz housing BEFORE soldering to the driver! As for pressing it in, I think the common way is to invert the backing of the module so the little hole goes over the leads on the diode in the "head" of the housing and use a vise to squeeze them together to push the diode into the "head". I'd also recommend removing the lens from the front so you don't damage it or the threads. I personally use a small brass fitting that has been slightly modified to fit the diode to press in/out diodes from the housing.

so what is the power of the 803T ??

andy_con said:

so what is the power of the 803T ??

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The jury is still out on this one. Milos has done some pretty impressive, destructive tests. I'm in the middle of a long term "realistic use" test. Climbak is in the middle of a VERY long term, "constant use" test. Climbak has posted along the process. Milos is designing a new generation of his blu-ray boxes. I'll be willing to "publish" in about two weeks. Somebody else (I'm sorry. I can't remember who it was right now) said they were going to do a destructive test as well.

Right now it seems safe to go with "almost" 100% duty cycle (with heatsinking) driving the diode at 100mA. The mW output is very much effected by what optics are being used.

Peace,
dave

ok but give me some rough ideas.

ive got a custom drive, slow start to be easy on the driver

andy_con said:

ok but give me some rough ideas.

ive got a custom drive, slow start to be easy on the driver

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Taken to PM

andy_con said:

so what is the power of the 803T ??

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I was lighting bottle rockets off through the storm-door glass @ 1M distance and I have measured about 80mW @.1 amp around 4.7volts on the LD. Was freeking out my neighbor too!

Hey guys. I received my three units today. One is in the computer and working perfectly. I ripped one apart, but decided to see what I could discover about the red laser diode can inside.

After some testing, I believe I have discovered the pinout. Please refer to my extremely detailed diagram:



Three of the pins travel into the can and have black insulating rings around them at the base to prevent them from contacting the can. The fourth one is the case pin and serves as the common ground or -. The top pin is the red laser diode, which emits a bright red light when I ran it at 50mA. The bottom pin appears to be the IR diode. I ran it at approximately 70mA and i found it projecting a dim reddish light onto the table. The last pin seems to do nothing, but current does pass through it. I will conduct some further testing on this diode and update as necessary.

EDIT: Yes, I can confirm with 100% confidence that this is the correct pinout. Photos are included of each laser running at roughly 40mA straight out of the can.

Red Laser:


IR diode:


As these are not DVD burner drives, I already seem to have overdriven the red LD. I was ramping up the source voltage when the LD got brighter then suddenly went dim and I couldn't get it back to the brightness it was at before. I didn't see exactly how much current was going through it, but I would estimate it to be just over 50mA. Don't exceed this amount and you should be able to build a practice pointer using the red diode.

LOL, Vicegrips! The Duct Tape of the heatsinking world!!! I keep 3 pairs on my bench for just such an occasion ;D