Sony PS3 KES400A - New Violet Laser Project!

Greetings everyone!


I'm new to this forum and here's my first contribution:

http://www.loneoceans.com/projects/project405/index.htm

I just made my first violet laser using a PS3 KES400A (running at ~38mA) and an accompanying webpage to document this little project. While the laser works, I do have some questions regarding it:

1. Does anyone actually have the datasheet or specs of the laser from the KES400A Sled?

2. I'm just using a LM317 + resistor to power my laser, running off 6xAAbatts. Is there anything unsafe about this setup for the laser?

3. I'm the the process of acquiring a PHR803t diode for a more powerful violet laser. Is there anything i should take note about it, and would it still be alright to use a similar LM317 driver (planning to drive at 100mA), or should I wire up a better circuit?

Attached is a photograph of the laser shining through tonic water and fluorescein. See the above webpage for more details.

Cheers and do comment!

Here's the closest thing to a datasheet we have:
http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/Blu-ray/site1/diode.html
If you look back to the first posts on this board there'll be more info about the PS3 diodes, though we pretty much forgot about them and ignored them completely once we found out the PHR-803T was capable of so very much more...

As for your driver, you will want to add at least a capacitor across the output in order to deal with voltage spikes... This thread has schematics for a more robust LM317T based driver.

Otherwise, great job! Welcome to the forums!

PS: KES-400 diodes won't handle 100mA very well.. Try 30-50 to start.

pseudolobster said:

Here's the closest thing to a datasheet we have:
[highlight]http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/Blu-ray/site1/diode.html[/highlight]
If you look back to the first posts on this board there'll be more info about the PS3 diodes, though we pretty much forgot about them and ignored them completely once we found out the PHR-803T was capable of so very much more...

As for your driver, you will want to add at least a capacitor across the output in order to deal with voltage spikes... This thread has schematics for a more robust LM317T based driver.

Otherwise, great job! Welcome to the forums!

PS: KES-400 diodes won't handle 100mA very well.. Try 30-50 to start.

Click to expand...

The driver in the first link you give (sam's laser FAQ) has the schematic that I use for LM317 drivers. It works great, and provides more filtering than the standard DDL circuit.