New Type of 12 Pin Diode (not new)

I disassembled an old notebook CD-RW/DVD drive and look what I found



I'm unable to find any pictures of this type of diode module anywhere. As you can (or maybe
you can't) see this is a bit different from the other 12 pin modules floating around. I
may have to do a bit of detective work on this thing to discover the pinout. It came out of a
Samsung SN324.

UPDATE:
I have discovered the pinout using a little ingenuity and the Nikos Aravantinos method.



And here it is lasing happily on the "workbench". We have a red.



Strangely enough, I could not find an infrared diode anywhere. If there was a separate one,
it's gone out with the trash and lost forever. Even more strange, the laser diode was
producing negative voltage from the test light.

It begins to lase at around 30mA. Things start getting strange over about 60mA - mode
hopping or something. The light will "snap" into a different position over a certain current. I
didn't go much higher for fear I would burn it up. As you can see, the beam is very crappy.
If I ever decide to mount it into a host, I'll break the optics off and let it all hang out open
can style.

The camera on my iPad must be very sensitive to this wavelength. It doesn't look
anywhere near that bright to the eye. I first tried taking the picture with my Canon Rebel
XTi, but the light did not show up at all. It must be coated with something that blocks most
light at 650-660nm.

I's be interested if anybody had ANY info on these strange diodes too. I have found some really strange looking things particularly in laptop burners.

Why do you guys want info on these? They are nearly unuseable due to their shape and most of the ones I have seen are plastic. Even if they are red burners we have useable ones for <$10 a pop.

I'm curious since this is apparently a "new" type and there is no information on it. That and it is usable to
me since I can machine all the necessary parts.

I've seen similar with different pin-outs. These are very very specialized diodes, with the photodiode integrated, hence the funky holographic beam splitter thingamabob.

If I find mine, I'll snap off the cube and let you know if I find a sealing glass window. Currently it's just something I find in the bottom of random boxes, and throw into other random boxes.

This isn't really a new diode... More of a false gold. They have used odd diodes since forever. And if it's in a laptop, it obviously has thousands of brother diodes. This isn't new at all.

Maybe "new" as in there arent any builds with these. Theres a reason for that. Not enough power, odd shape. They serve a very specific purpose in the device they were intended to be used in and thats about it. Not much "hobby" use for them.

Yeah, I only kept mine because it looks neat. It's basically a CD/DVD reader as-is, where other drives have all sorts of mirrors, lenses, gratings, splitters, etc.

BShanahan14rulz said:

If I find mine, I'll snap off the cube and let you know if I find a sealing glass window. Currently it's just something I find in the bottom of random boxes, and throw into other random boxes.

Click to expand...

Also, please post a pinout. I'm curious about anything odd and unusual.

Anyway, what I mean by "New" is that there are no pictures or any info on these online, at least nothing Google was willing to show me. What I mean by (not new) is that they've obviously been around a while since the drive was made more than 5 years ago and there were thousands if not hundreds of thousands of units sold.