Group buy for 16X dvd burner diodes !

Xenodius said:

Thanks Daedal, that makes WAY more sense!

I am sort of used to the N*zi Regime of RougeScience.org, they pretty much require you to have perfect grammar, and only ask one question per question you answer or finding that you contribute, but you get 3 "starter" questions... LOL!

And that driverboard sounds quite appealing.... I figured about 5 bucks for misc caps and resistors at radio shack, but that thing has a pot, right? Thats sweet! I can tune my laser down for amiable pointing, or up for burnination!

Thanks again!

Click to expand...

Not a problem... I'm glad I could help.

The driver board does in fact have a pot, but these things are usually extremely sensitive and would pretty much jump from about 30mA to about 100mA just by slightly vibrating the screw! It's fairly annoying, so be EXTREMELY careful when working with one of these. I personally suggest working with an LM317. It's fairly excellent and very powerful. You can get a multi-turn potentiometer and ideally fine-tune the current going through from 12.5mA to about an Amp with just one 100-ohm potentiometer. When trying to get so high though, I would suggest using a carbon resistor in series with the pot to control any accidental drops in the resistance... with pots, these do happen at the ends sometimes. For example... to limit the MAX current to 200mA you use a 6.25 ohm resistor. For 150mA you use an 8.3 ohm resistor. For these red diodes, I'd say limiting to about 250mA is excellent for CW drive. So a 5 ohm carbon resistor in series with a 100 ohm pot would give excellent play room and controllability over the range that the diode would run safely under CW mode

The LM317's work this way... It uses the simple Ohm's law of V=I*R or I=V/R The V for the LM317 is the reference voltage built into the LM317, that is 1.25V on average, with very nominal variance. The R that I am talking about is the resistance that you would put in right after the Vout pin of the chip itself and then the Adjust pin would connect to it after the resistor (other side of where the Vout connects to). Your output positive terminal is the point where the Adjust plugs in. The ground is direct to battery ground.

Hope that helps;
DDL

Good luck;
DDL

lol sorry so what kind of board do i have to attach to the diode i have to run out to radio shack before my diode comes

I would like to also thank Daedal for the in depth explanation. Some times it is hard for me to explain what I visualize in my mind, or I get lazy. Sorry about that.

What I would do is tune the pot for burning, then add a resistor and switch to turn the power down for pointing. This would save a lot of wear and tear on the pot regardless if using a driver board or the LM317, and just plain be much easier. The LM317 is extremely easy to work with and cheap, but it is not as efficient as other methods.

00304 said:

lol sorry so what kind of board do i have to attach to the diode i have to run out to radio shack before my diode comes

Click to expand...

You don't need a board. All you need is a resistor and capacitor. It depends on the batteries you are going to use. My post above explains the values I used for the resistor and capacitor

00304 said:

lol sorry so what kind of board do i have to attach to the diode i have to run out to radio shack before my diode comes

Click to expand...

If you give me a couple of days after I get my diodes I'll do some testing and report back on what exactly you'd need to get this thing running... But for a preliminary setup, this is what you'd need...

RadioShack DIY red shopping list (catalog numbers):
276-1778 Pick up a few, these are extremely useful for pretty much any kind of regulation... experiment with them before you get the diodes... get to know the pins and the setups possible. This is frankly a very powerful chip and one of the most useful.
271-312 If you ever wanted to have a nice assortment of all kinds of resistors so you never have to worry about driving up to RS for every circuit, this is your answer!
272-1027 I believe enough has been said about these. These are extremely important when working with LD's. RS is very bad about cap pricing and they are fairly expensive for what they are... You can invest a few more bucks and get everything I list here from DigiKey and probably end up saving a ton!
276-1653 The price vs. quantity justifies buying it over individual packets. Mostly it's 4001's, which is what we need
271-1605 Check this right here for 100 ohm pots. Usually they're not what you need, but I can't find any 100 ohm pots at RS... I get mine from DigiKey and an electronics store around here
If you need one, try and look for a momentary pushbutton, and for size, look for a surface mount one if you want to make your own housing.

That should about sum it up. I hope I didn't miss anything or you'll be making extra trips ;D

GL;
DDL

Gazoo said:

I would like to also thank Daedal for the in depth explanation. Some times it is hard for me to explain what I visualize in my mind, or I get lazy. Sorry about that.

What I would do is tune the pot for burning, then add a resistor and switch to turn the power down for pointing. This would save a lot of wear and tear on the pot regardless if using a driver board or the LM317, and just plain be much easier. The LM317 is extremely easy to work with and cheap, but it is not as efficient as other methods.

Click to expand...

I agree... and I should probably say that when using an LM317 you need to have 3V above the diode's requirement supplied. In this case, something around 5-6V would do fine

--DDL

lol i typed in the part numbers and they are not coming up do u have the name?

HELOOOOO EVERYONE !

I have confirmation that the diodes will be here tomorrow - my neighbor will receive them for me, as I will be doing the family celebration with my daughter for her Birthday that day (Her actual Birthday) now, I fully expect to have them divided up, and mailed out Thursday, but at the LATEST it would be Friday. The SenTorches that are being sent out will go out at the same time, so those that bought both will receive both unless you receive an email from me prior to that time, asking for your preferences on the high powered reds....Sorry to meld two group buys into one thread - I will copy this, and cross post it in the other thread as well so everyone sees it. Again, thanks for your patience - for being jobless, I sure as hell have been busy as hell the past week ! (Part of the blame falls on Harry Potter, as well ! *grin*

00304 said:

lol i typed in the part numbers and they are not coming up do u have the name?

Click to expand...

They are all Radio Shack part numbers and they all come up except the first one should be 276-1778

Daedal did a typo ;D

What batteries are you going to use???

SenKat said:

HELOOOOO EVERYONE !

I have confirmation that the diodes will be here tomorrow - my neighbor will receive them for me, as I will be doing the family celebration with my daughter for her Birthday that day (Her actual Birthday) now, I fully expect to have them divided up, and mailed out Thursday, but at the LATEST it would be Friday. The SenTorches that are being sent out will go out at the same time, so those that bought both will receive both unless you receive an email from me prior to that time, asking for your preferences on the high powered reds....Sorry to meld two group buys into one thread - I will copy this, and cross post it in the other thread as well so everyone sees it. Again, thanks for your patience - for being jobless, I sure as hell have been busy as hell the past week ! (Part of the blame falls on Harry Potter, as well ! *grin*

Click to expand...

Tell her everyone from the forum wishes her a happy birthday !

EDIT: oh yeah, thank your neighbor but make sure he doesn't take any of our diodes LOL

I'll tell her

Oh - he is an oil-rig mechanic, so has ZERO interest in lasers -TRUST me, I have tried to convert him....no dice heheheheh

Is it too late to go in for two more? I ordered three (payment sent a while back), but just decided I would like to have five. I will send payment now, if you cant ship me 5, just refund it and that will be fine.

Awesome news SenKat! Tell your daughter Happy Birthday from the forum!

I cant wait!!!

Gazoo said:

[quote author=00304 link=1183788027/180#182 date=1185313427]lol i typed in the part numbers and they are not coming up do u have the name?

Click to expand...

They are all Radio Shack part numbers and they all come up except the first one should be 276-1778

Daedal did a typo ;D

What batteries are you going to use???[/quote]

Hehe Thank you for spotting that... I'm sorry about that guys.

As about the batteries... hmm... 3V for the LM317 and 3V for the diode... perhaps 2 CR123A batteries? Or some other kind of 6V battery...

--DDL

SenKat, thank you very much for the update and I can confirm that Harry Potter is quite the addiction We all wish your daughter a very happy birthday... is she getting a laser as a present? : Please also thank your neighbor for taking the time and for helping us out. Hopefully the rest of the SenTorches will be coming in and I'm sure a lot of red will be flying around my house... ;D ;D

Thanx;
DDL

Hmm, Somewhere I saw a specialized 6v "marine" battery, like for jetskis and such, if you wanted a portable labby-style and didn't mind a 12lb battery, then that might work... for a few decades LOL ;D ;D ;D It was about 80 bucks though.