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240ma but no heatl?

tommer

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Apr 21, 2009
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Hi guys
i have a problem with my first built laser.
It's working, wich means its emitting light (red), the driver is the LM317, its current is at about 240mA (from 9V batt) , the aixiz housing is getting hot within some seconds but the beam itself does not heat up anything. It's taken from some old mo-drive (magnetic-optical) but i dont know anything about its purpose in current or power..

and its not really focusable (its a needle-top sized point depending on the focus of the lens from 2cm to 15cm - with enlarging the distance the beam cant be kept sharp) and the diode itself is / was a little bit deformed from taking it out of the drive. When i'd put it in the aixiz housing it seemed to be pressed to tormal shape..

can someone of you please help?

ty ;D
 





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What exactly are you trying to heat? the heating effects of lasers are dependent on the color of the laser and the type/color of the object being heated.
 
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From what you've told us it sounds like you broke the window (unless it's an open can then i don't know). Also can you give more details on the drive you got it from? It's very possible it's not a high powered diode in the first place and driving it that high is killing it.
 
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or it could just be dead... Even a 'dead' diode will lase a little bit... maybe 5mW or less but still create the same amount of heat at the diode itself.
 

tommer

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hey
thx for your replies.. i guess i will give another diode the  chance ;)

im going to write if anything changes  :cool:

€dit:
@elektrofreak: i'd just want to light matches, poof (black) balloons - that usual stuff xD
@humansymphony: yeah it's a closed can - i dont have a clue so i guess it will be that :|
the mo-drive works like this: there is a magnetic tape thats heated up to about 300 degree celsius by the diode (so i guess its no low-power diode) and then data is written with magnets.. you know that stuff ;]
@gooeygus: do u mean dead from being overloaded or from being damaged while building into the aixiz?


btw: sorry for my s**king english - im a german guy ^^
 
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tommer said:
hey
thx for your replies.. i guess i will give another diode the  chance ;)

im going to write if anything changes  :cool:

€dit:
@elektrofreak: i'd just want to light matches, poof (black) balloons - that usual stuff xD
@humansymphony: yeah it's a closed can - i dont have a clue so i guess it will be that :|
the mo-drive works like this: there is a magnetic tape thats heated up to about 300 degree celsius by the diode (so i guess its no low-power diode) and then data is written with magnets.. you know that stuff ;]
@gooeygus: do u mean dead from being overloaded or from being damaged while building into the aixiz?


btw: sorry for my s**king english - im a german guy ^^

1.) Order a 16x From Stonetek. Set the current to 240mA. You will be able to do what you want with it.
2.) Closed and open cans look diferent. A closed can has a glass window on it. Open cans don't.
3.) Was this taken out of a hard drive? Your discription doesn't make scence to me.
4.) He likely meant dead from static, to much current, or abuse from Heat/soldering and extraction from the drive.

Good luck :)
 

tommer

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iskor12 said:
1.) Order a 16x From Stonetek.  Set the current to 240mA.  You will be able to do what you want with it.
2.) Closed and open cans look diferent.  A closed can has a glass window on it.  Open cans don't.
3.) Was this taken out of a hard drive?  Your discription doesn't make scence to me.
4.) He likely meant dead from static, to much current, or abuse from Heat/soldering and extraction from the drive.

Good luck :)

1.) Stonetek is fine, sure but i have some diodes lying around here ;)
2.) sure, its a closed can and i didn't mean that i dont know what kinda mine is, it was more the fact that i didn't know any other possibilities for the diode to be that "strange" to me
3.) mo-drives work just like that. you can put a tape in it (the storeage medium), the diode heats up the part of the tape where data is to be stored and e-magnets or something are then more easily able to save the data on it than when the part wouldn't be hot ;) - the diode is from 1 of those mo-drives :]
4.) yeah, sure all these things CAN kill a diode but with my question i intended to get to know what fact seemed to be the most possible one..

thanks anyway!
 
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try a 6v power supply. When i was first starting out i got a stonetek diode with a rkcstr driver set at 300mA powered by a 9v battery. Sure it was bright but it didnt do anything. I then hooked it up to a 6v power supply (4 AAs) and it was a monster :D Try it out. If not order a diode from stonetek ;)
 

tommer

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hey guys

figured the prob: the diode just died before from too much current.. i got another one starting and slowly raising the current level until i noticed it got suddenly much darker.. i guess it was at around 150mA ;) can you tell me how much mW this could be? around 90mW - could that be possible?

tommer
 
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hey guys

figured the prob: the diode just died before from too much current.. i got another one starting and slowly raising the current level until i noticed it got suddenly much darker.. i guess it was at around 150mA ;) can you tell me how much mW this could be? around 90mW - could that be possible?

tommer

It's hard to tell without knowing what kind of diode it is.
This is the only chart that I have that was made by a member on here.
Red20Diode20Graph20-20All.jpg
 




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