How bright should a Blue Ray look next to 5mW red?

adgmeijin · Feb 1, 2008

Re: How bright should a Blue Ray look next to 5mW

Gazoo i didnt mentioned the trimpot adjustment including in the DDL LD driver, its my pleasure for you to explain it to Igort cuz you have much knowledge on that part, thanks for corrections

Gazoo · Feb 1, 2008

Re: How bright should a Blue Ray look next to 5mW

adgmeijin said:
Gazoo i didnt mentioned the trimpot adjustment including in the DDL LD driver, its my pleasure for you to explain it to Igort cuz you have much knowledge on that part, thanks for corrections

He..he...ok. Once again I forgot you are using pots...sorry..lol

Gazoo · Feb 1, 2008

Re: How bright should a Blue Ray look next to 5mW

"A while ago i saw someone mentioning he thought his BR was dead, untill he raised the current up to, i don't know, was it 60-70mA?"

Yes I saw that too and I don't remember where it was. But you have nothing to loose by trying it.

Without the lens, Mine will light up an area of appx. 3X4 feet from about 4 feet away...it isn't real bright, but is plenty bright enough to fluoresce things.

IgorT · Feb 1, 2008

Re: How bright should a Blue Ray look next to 5mW

Hmm, i was thinking..

When this thing is in a drive and working, it's current is regulated by referencing it to the photodiode..
So if it worked during testing, it must have been capable of creating enough light..

Unless something happened to it, from that moment on, and untill now, it might just still be capable of that..
When i see how powerfull the other is, i'll try to push this one that far. If it goes poof it goes poof.

BTW: I read somewhere, their power can be measured using a solar cell. Of course it wouldn't give me a mW rating, but maybe i could at least compare it to a known value, like the 5mW red?

Unless of course the solar cells have a different sensitivity to different wavelengths..

Anyone know something about this?

IgorT · Feb 1, 2008

Re: How bright should a Blue Ray look next to 5mW

Gazoo said:
Yes I saw that too and I don't remember where it was. But you have nothing to loose by trying it.

Without the lens, Mine will light up an area of appx. 3X4 feet from about 4 feet away...it isn't real bright, but is plenty bright enough to fluoresce things.

You're right. I have nothing to lose, because right now it isn't really doing all that much without a hell of a lot of smoke.

And about the illumination.. Wow! I just tried this and it was barely noticable.
I can only see this fluorescence without the lense if i shine it on the desk from a couple of cm away.

Now i REALLY want the other one to work well!

Wish me luck!

adgmeijin · Feb 1, 2008

Re: How bright should a Blue Ray look next to 5mW

Gazoo, can you please help me to sort the extracting situation in my last post, thanks.(Im using LG 20x DVD burner....)

Zarniwoop · Feb 1, 2008

Re: How bright should a Blue Ray look next to 5mW

I started on a solar cell meter project. Within the visible spectrum, the voltage produced by most silicon cells varies fairly linearly with the wavelength (longer wavelengths produce more voltage).
So you'd see less voltage from a BluRay than from a red for the same wattage.
Something like this part of a graph I ripped off a technical paper:

I wonder if some people's eyes are more sensitive to near UV than others.

Try pointing it at something with fluorescent colors and see how bright it looks. Mine always seems pretty dim to me but when I do that it's downright hard to look at.

IgorT · Feb 1, 2008

Re: How bright should a Blue Ray look next to 5mW

jake21 said:
if u want to sell it ill buy it

I'm not done with it yet..

Have to compare it to the other one first, to see if this is normal.

Wouldn't want to sell a bad one anyway..

IgorT · Feb 1, 2008

Re: How bright should a Blue Ray look next to 5mW

adgmeijin said:
hey Igort here's one of my pic of my working Blu-ray, i shot it in the dark with a flash of a phone cam, my input was 9volts using DDL LD driver set to, 4.5-4.7volts @ 38mA-40mA, (i use 2 10ohm resistor to make it 5ohm),it really works well and bright I used it almost a month now in daily basis, nothing change,

Thanks for the pic!

That is the actual beam in that picture?!? It sure looks very bright and visible. Did you have any forg or smoke to make the beam that visible? I mean, it looks impressive!

What i wouldn't give to have such a nice beam...

adgmeijin said:
and when I change it with fresh battery it gives me even more brightness i never expect.

That means your battery didn't have enough voltage for the regulator to supply the BR LD with constant current before you charged it.
Since the regulator needs some 3V above what the LD needs (yours - 4.7V), to supply it with a constant current, maybe your battery was below 7.7V? Then after charging, the current would again be what you set it to.

These 9V rechargables don't have all that much capacity. My best one is a 200mAh. What capacity are you using? And how long does it last, before the power starts dropping?

Thanks!

desslok · Feb 1, 2008

Re: How bright should a Blue Ray look next to 5mW

IgorT said:
You said yours was very bright at 35mA. What does that mean? Would the spot be visible inside, during the day? How visible? Usefull as a pointer for a presentation?

The dot is very visible inside in the day, even under office flourescents. The beam however is very difficult to see in complete darkness. I have to look down the beam slightly off of eye level to faintly make it out. Pointing it at white paper from a foot away actually hurts your eyes. Pics don't turn out well as it blinds the camera. I took this one against a flat black plastic pioece of my PC as that's the only thing that seems to not blind the camera, here. this as about 37mA.

IgorT · Feb 1, 2008

Re: How bright should a Blue Ray look next to 5mW

desslok said:
The dot is very visible inside in the day, even under office flourescents. The beam however is very difficult to see in complete darkness. I have to look down the beam slightly off of eye level to faintly make it out. Pointing it at white paper from a foot away actually hurts your eyes. Pics don't turn out well as it blinds the camera. I took this one against a flat black plastic pioece of my PC as that's the only thing that seems to not blind the camera, here. this as about 37mA.

Thanks!!

That is good to know. Now i have something to look forward to.
I'll start working on the other one right now.

If i could only get the beam and the dot as visible as the 5mW Red or even more, it would be a WONDERFULL laser!

BTW: After destroying two powerfull red ones (18x DVD & 16x DVD), before making a sucessfull burner, i became very carefull.
I'm grounded ALL THE TIME and even short the capacitors before soldering them on. And i test everything a couple of times, before powering the laser up.

With these two BRs i even mounted them into the AixiZ module FIRST, before desoldering the tiny PCB, so the heat would dissipate into the module.

I really hope i get lucky right about now....

desslok · Feb 1, 2008

Re: How bright should a Blue Ray look next to 5mW

IgorT said:
BTW: After destroying two powerfull red ones (18x DVD & 16x DVD), before making a sucessfull burner, i became very carefull.
I'm grounded ALL THE TIME and even short the capacitors before soldering them on. And i test everything a couple of times, before powering the laser up.
With these two BRs i even mounted them into the AixiZ module FIRST, before desoldering the tiny PCB, so the heat would dissipate into the module.
I really hope i get lucky right about now....

Yeah, i've killed a couple reds, even killed my favorite from a 20x LG lightscribe. I actually have even burnt the small hair sized wire going from the lead to the actual diode itself, and fixed it. I always ground myself and I ALWAYS use heatsink pliers when soldering. I'm actually going to get another pair so I can solder in between 2, i recently saw a resistor get a little 2 hot and melt the coating a bit, as the resistor was the least important one on that joint. On my BR, I actually left the PCB on there, just cause I didn't want to risk it, just cut the ribbon cable straight. Seems you are on the right track, i'm sure you'll get it very soon. Good luck!

IgorT · Feb 1, 2008

Re: How bright should a Blue Ray look next to 5mW

Ok...

So the first one started producing more or less a nice spot and beam at 78mA..
I thought, ok, maybe it's a weird one. It worked for a while then i tried repositioning it, and nudged it ever so slightly, and it shut down.

Now it lights up at 200mA, but it's more or less a LED...

Since the other one was in the module already and i had the driver built, i just changed the resistor to 30 Ohm, and carefully put the other one on..

This one actually works!!! The spot is approx as bright as the 5mW red.

It takes 35mA at 4.9V.. Or 42mA at 5V. The beam is great!

What current do you guys think i should run it at? Seems to be a normal one.

Thanks!

IgorT · Feb 1, 2008

Re: How bright should a Blue Ray look next to 5mW

After more testing..

There is a very obvious difference between the brightness at 35, 38 and 42mA.
But the dot is MUCH brighter than the 5mW Red in all cases.

And MUCH brighter, than the first one was, even at 78mA.
No wonder i wasn't happy with that one.

This thing would actually be usefull as a pointer at presentations. It's great!

I LOVE IT!!!

Would have been better if i had two working ones, but hey, this was one of the reasons i got two in the first place..

Anyway, thanks to everyone for the encouragement and the suggestions!

Gazoo · Feb 1, 2008

Re: How bright should a Blue Ray look next to 5mW

I don't notice a big difference in brightness between 30 and 40ma's. But I would definitely keep it under 40ma's. Many of us have been running ours at 38ma's with zero problems. I am sorry you got a dud, but am glad the second one is working out for you.

IgorT · Feb 2, 2008

Re: How bright should a Blue Ray look next to 5mW

Or not...

Something happened to the second one, and it suddenly lost half his brightness while it was running at 39mA.
Now it needs 85mA to get approx the same brightness or maybe even slightly less. It also get's a little warm.

On the other hand, the first one is still a laser. It needs approx 170mA and is slightly less visible than the second one after the misterious disaster.

So now i have two blue ray lasers, both heavily overdriven, and both not as bright as they would be if they were ok..

Just my luck...

I'm so depressed right now....

How bright should a Blue Ray look next to 5mW red?

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