DVD Lasers  If I only knew

I am a computer tech and I did not know that you could use DVD lasers to make homemade pointers.
we do warranty work on lots of different brand computers.

A few months ago we had 25+ computers that had bad DVD Dual layer with light scribe drives, the door would not open. It was a lot of bad ones from the factory.
We normally have to send the bad drives back but they said to just toss these which I did.
If I only knew.

I do still get one every few weeks that I can keep. My problem is I am not good at making things, it seems I always screw up something.

I have a proposal for someone. I will supply you with several parts out of the DVD's (just tell me what parts to get out) and you make me one for every 3 usable ones I send you.

Are dvd burners the only ones that work? How about dvd players or cdrw's?
Are laptop drives usable? (75-80% of what I do is laptops)
PM or Email me if you are interested.

Right now I have a dead external Sony brand dual layer DVD-RW but I should have more soon.

Re: DVD Lasers  If I only knew

You get anymore i'll pay the shipping for any you don't want

Re: DVD Lasers  If I only knew

Jeff - DVD burners are the only ones that have the "good" diodes in them. For RED, that is.
ALL cd/dvd drives have some coooool optics and stuff in there, not to mention the little 5v motors in there. I FORGET which ones have the good IR diodes in there - but the red is sooooo much more fun !

If we were going to do this, the best way (cheapest for shipping) would be to remove the optics "carriage" assy out of the drive, and ship just those. Maybe a few boards with the motors on them, too - not the screw drive ones (those are a pain in the A$$ to get working right ) but the drawer eject motors.

Pack them in cotton, then an ESD baggie (IF available) and ship HUGE ammounts to me !


I can harvest the diodes, and send those back, or with a decent enough deal (and lead time) mount them into some pointers for you...Let me know, I would be more than happy to not only help out, but to get my hands on more of those diodes !

Oh, yeah - I sent you a PM regarding this as well.