Sony 20x burners $24 at Newegg

Abray said:

Gazoo, I went back and looked at the first page again, and I did find the part that explained the extraction process. It turns out that when I gave up on the completely closed one (now known to be IR), I had started on the correct one, in the CORRECT way!! With that knowledge, I have completely and (as far as I know) safely gotten it out!!!

and GEEZ this diode is tiny! I guess I always knew they were small, like 5 mm, but I guess I never actually realized how small it would be. If that makes any sense lol. This is the first diode I have ever harvested, and I'm extremely happy it was a success!!!

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Excellent! I will never forget when I got my first diode. It was from Ebay and I thought the same...how in the hell can something so small produce a powerful burning beam...I was truly amazed. ;D

steelybob....contratulations on your extraction too. It is very easy with the Sony especially after you do the first one. I will continue to recommend this drive.

Gazoo said:

Excellent! I will never forget when I got my first diode. It was from Ebay and I thought the same...how in the hell can something so small produce a powerful burning beam...I was truly amazed.  ;D

steelybob....contratulations on your extraction too. It is very easy with the Sony especially after you do the first one. I will continue to recommend this drive.

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Gazoo, look what you have started with the open can diodes! Lol...I mean, at least in LPF. I believe it was you anyway... Must be a lot of increase in sales for those drives! I'm getting kind of busy with the heatsinks too. But, I have committed myself. There are a lot of nice MXDL burners out there now...
Jay

Jay I am lovin every minute of it... ;D But I must always remember it was VaThink who got me started on the open cans and the TEC's, and I owe him many thanks.

Thanks to your heatsinks I am sure there will be many MXDL 300's around...lol. I plan on making mine this weekend.

yeah you guys are a big help, thanks! first you started this, and now you are helping people out.

I'm kinda putting my MXDL together as the parts arrive in the mail lol. So far I have a glass lens, and the diode which I just pressed into an AixiZ module.

Abray said:

yeah you guys are a big help, thanks! first you started this, and now you are helping people out.

I'm kinda putting my MXDL together as the parts arrive in the mail lol. So far I have a glass lens, and the diode which I just pressed into an AixiZ module.

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When you get it together, try the acrylic lens as well. (you will have to carefully cut away some of the black plastic to expose the lens better on the 'diode side' of the lens - otherwise it will start to melt)
I am curious about the experience of others, with the comparison of the AixiZ acrylic vs the glass. (I got my glass AixiZ from drlava)
I measured only about 1mW more power with the glass. This is at 420mA's in an open can. But the difference at that power, between a Meredith glass and an AixiZ acrylic, is about 40mW's to 50mW's.

So, I wasn't too impressed with the AixiZ glass lens. Plus, it sticks out too far and doesn't look as nice and clean. I like a clean finish. Just wondering if anybody else has tested the power difference between the AixiZ glass vs acrylic. Maybe mine is just not too good...
Jay

jayrob said:

I measured only about 1mW more power with the glass. This is at 420mA's in an open can. But the difference at that power, between a Meredith glass and an AixiZ acrylic, is about 40mW's to 50mW's.

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I also have aixiz glass lenses, and i had a feeling, they wouldn't achieve the same Po increase as the meredith glass lenses..


I think this has something to do with the fact, that their back side is not fully exposed to the light coming out of the laser.. I mean, in acrylic lenses we always pull out or cut away the plastic behind it, to let more light in..

But the aixiz glass lenses are in a chunk of metal, and while the opening is slightly bigger on the back side of it, it doesn't come close to the acrylic lense, when you remove the plastic...


I noticed this metal chunk is made of two pieces screwed together, so i tried unscrewing them, but unfortunatelly, they're also glued together..

If we could somehow get the glass lense out and put it in the plastic aperture, i think the Po increase would be much closer to the meredith glass lenses.. 1mW is simply not worth it on the other hand.. Especially since much of the light is hitting the black metal and increasing heat..


It is possible to buy only lenses tho, from Roithner, Austria i think.. Don't know bout the price..


But now that i know, that the glass aixiz lenses don't do much to increase power, i think i can risk trying to cut the metal away somehow, to get to the glass lense..

I just edited this post since the earlier question was stupid, I've already figured it out. I also cut doen the size of that huge metal thing with a hacksaw. BUT.

which way do the batteries go in the MXDL? positive facing the output end or the end with the switch?

and does anybody know how the current goes through the MXDL. I can clearly see the place where the current would flow TO the diode/LED, but then I can't quite figure out how the current gets back. It almost seems as if the current goes through the actual case to get to the other battery terminal. Tha is how my mini maglite works, anyhow.

Abray said:

well the heatsink AND MXDL just came, so now its time to get to work! however, to get to the resistor in the MXDL, and to set up the circuit and everything, will I need to take the driver board out of the MXDL?

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Yeah man, you better take some time and read through the first few pages of Daedal's thread. He has some great pictures of the inside of the MXDL:
http://www.laserpointerforums.com/forums/YaBB.pl?num=1186966870
After you understand his thread, then check the notes on the 'heatsink tips' page that I sent with the heatsink. For this build, we are not using two 10 ohm resistors, or a pot. Just the 3 ohm resistor at the LM317...
Jay

I have confirmed that the resistor is 3 ohms, but before I can put the circuit together, I still need to know how the batteries are faced, and where the current goes to get to the opposite terminal...

Abray said:

I have confirmed that the resistor is 3 ohms, but before I can put the circuit together, I still need to know how the batteries are faced, and where the current goes to get to the opposite terminal...

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Ok...check out the diagram in DDL's driver thread:
http://www.laserpointerforums.com/forums/YaBB.pl?num=1185701612#1
Follow that diagram exactly, except use the 3 ohm resistor instead of the 10 ohm and the pot. The positive from the batteries go to the 1st pin there on the LM317. (color picture) So, the batteries will go into the MXDL, positive first. The negative is at the tail cap...
Jay

and then I just need a wire coming from the negative pin on the diode to touch the inside of the MXDL? as that will then carry the current to the tail cap?

also, Daedal sent me a LM317 for that blu-ray circuit, will it work for this curcuit or will I need one rated at a higher current/voltage?

Abray said:

and then I just need a wire coming from the negative pin on the diode to touch the inside of the MXDL? as that will then carry the current to the tail cap?

also, Daedal sent me a LM317 for that blu-ray circuit, will it work for this curcuit or will I need one rated at a higher current/voltage?

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Yes, the negative side of the LD, goes straight to the negative side of the batteries. Via the MXDL body. The little threaded emitter/driver holder, is connected to the case of the MXDL. The little round circuit board that you will build your LM317 based driver on, needs to have the negative lead 'pinched' between it, and the threaded holder. Take a look at this little set of pictures that I put together for you:

The diagram on DDL's page that I linked above will help you to see how to solder the connections to the LM317. Study it very closely...
Jay

P.S. A blu-ray driver would be a little different. For a DDL style blu-ray driver, the battery supply would need to be at least 9 volts. A 33 ohm resistor is perfect for about 38mA's using a PS3 diode. Better, is an adjustable blu-ray driver, if you have room in the host! This is an adjustable blu-ray driver that I made, using an MXDL host that can fit 3 X 3.6 volt AAA (sized), 10440 batteries:
http://www.laserpointerforums.com/forums/YaBB.pl?num=1202168096/0#14

THANK YOU!! this helped alot! I was sitting here waiting for an answer lol, but it was worth it! time to go get back to work!

edit: WOW I am very pissed off right now. After I set everything up, I double checked the circuit, made sure everything was right, I hooked the diode up. I turn it on, and IMMEDIATE LED. when I say IMMEDIATE, I mean there was no power at all. it was an LED right then and there. No idea how. Oh and also, while running the now 32 dollar LED, something inside the MXDL starts to smoke. excellent. I have an idea of what it might be, but I don't care about that right now.

Abray said:

THANK YOU!! this helped alot! I was sitting here waiting for an answer lol, but it was worth it! time to go get back to work!

edit: WOW I am very pissed off right now. After I set everything up, I double checked the circuit, made sure everything was right, I hooked the diode up. I turn it on, and IMMEDIATE LED. when I say IMMEDIATE, I mean there was no power at all. it was an LED right then and there. No idea how. Oh and also, while running the now 32 dollar LED, something inside the MXDL starts to smoke. excellent. I have an idea of what it might be, but I don't care about that right now.

Click to expand...

Abray, sorry to hear about your diode... That's a bummer. Not sure if this was the case, but another thing to watch out for when building, is the fact that the cap holds a charge. So, if you happened to have built your driver with the silicon diode and cap, on the little MXDL board, and tested the driver, then you have to make sure to discharge the cap (by shorting the wires together) before connecting the LD. 'Something starts to smoke' sounds very strange though. Maybe one of the components is touching the aluminum?? The LM317 has it's own heatsink. (you probably cut it down some to make more room) That is the VOut on the LM317, and has to be isolated and not touching anything. So check that...
Jay

Jay, yes I have confirmed that it is dead now. I'll have to order some more drives to harvest as I am not yet done with this! And about the smoking thing, I think it was a wire from my cap resting against the resistor, but I'm still not sure. As for the rest of the circuit, I checked to make sure nothing was touching that wasn't supposed to be touching, and I also shorted the cap. many times. So I really don't know what the problem was. Maybe there was something touching that wasn't supposed to be that I didn't catch. who knows.

but with all that said, I kept testing the circuit. with the dead diode hooked up, I checked the current reading and it only came out to 300 something. Is this just because the dead diode has a different draw from the batteries?

Abray said:

but with all that said, I kept testing the circuit. with the dead diode hooked up, I checked the current reading and it only came out to 300 something. Is this just because the dead diode has a different draw from the batteries?

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300 what? mA? uA? What range are you in on your multimeter, and how did you measure this current?

Did you measure voltage across a 1 Ohm resistor, or did you put the meter between the circuit and the LD?



Most of us have a 1 Ohm 1% resistor in series with the LD, so we can measure the voltage drop across it in mV, which is the same as the current through it in mA...

If you put the multimeter between the circuit output and the LD, this is sometimes dangerous, since the output cap can hold a charge and once you solder in the LD, it dumps it all through it.

This is why it's safer to have everything permanently soldered together... You can measure the current at the circuit input, between the battery and circuit, since it's the same as the one going through the LD. Or even better across that 1 Ohm resistor...


Also, when i solder an LD to a cap, i first discharge that cap, using aligator clips. I leave them on, while soldering. Otherwise, if you power the circuit on without a load, it can charge up to a very high voltage - slightly less than the voltage of your batteries..



The thing is, since something was smoking, you must have had a short circuit somewhere.. A component may be dead, and it's possible, that the LD isn't.. But to make sure, we need to know where you measured 300, and 300 what.