How to build a red burner when you just don't care

It's embarrassing to admit, but I'd never actually handled a higher powered laser before... I may talk like I know a lot about electronics and lasers, but it's all been theory till recently, when I decided I'd just throw together whatever parts I had laying around with no concern about killing the diode.

I got a bunch of 16x burners that had these unusual rectangular diodes (discussed here.. some pics of them here), which prove near impossible to mount in any sort of reasonable housing... so I wasn't really concerned about killing it.



I soldered it to a penny as a way of heatsinking it, since it was getting really hot on its own... At first I really didn't care and I just drove it directly off batteries for a while, then in an effort to prolong its life I decided to solder some random parts in there.. I grabbed the lowest value resistor in my parts bin (10ohm) which proved to be too high and I ended up shorting it, along with a 10uf 25v capacitor.. why 10uf? because it was right next to the pushbutton I was salvaging and I decided what the hey.



I started off by gluing the dvd burner's original lens to the front of the diode, which wasn't very good... it was full of artifacts and had a fixed focal point of about an inch away from the lens... eventually I glued an aixiz lens to a rod and mounted that in place.. worked a lot better and gave me a way of focusing it.



I got a good deal of fun out of this diode before I killed it... I'd say I used it for about 3-4 hours or so, cumulatively... I smoked some floppies, I managed to put a nice hole in my mousepad, and I lit a bunch of matches.. (for some reason it would light blackened matches instantly, but could not light an unmodified match.. (maybe just the color of red in the matches was the same wavelength as the laser or something)).

Here's a beamshot:

(my room's not really that dark, the exposure on my camera just sucks.)

(here's another, better exposure, showing closer to the actual ambient light in my room)

I also played around with a "time tunnel", sticking a tiny mirror from the burner onto a spare cpu fan I had laying around... I left this on for at least half an hour, and nether the diode or the penny got so much as warm... I'm considering using pennies for heatsinks more often... they're solid copper (or at least the older ones are), and hey, they're cheap!



It eventually stopped lasing once the batteries fell to about 2.2v... thinking maybe I'd killed the diode, I tried it with an AC adapter to check... sure enough it was still alive, and put out one last burst of red before the dirty power from the adapter killed it.

All in all, it was a fun distraction for a while.. I hope this inspires someone to throw caution to the wind once in a while and just *do* it... Life is too short to be overly cautious all the time, and sometimes it's worth losing a few bucks to learn from your mistakes.

(of course, I mean in terms of wasting money and killing diodes... as far as laser safety goes, you can never be too careful with your eyes.)

Re: How to build a red burner when you just don't

lol that's the most crafty design i've ever seen. i love it ;D

Re: How to build a red burner when you just don't

That design actually looks pretty cool. I reckon it would be really small too.

All you need to do is fit a driver in there, and you'd be set


Or even you can start making a product line like that Just where most lasers have '5000 hour diode life' you can cross it out and write '4 hour diode life' ;D

Re: How to build a red burner when you just don't

some words about safety...

note that I cut a lot of corners here and didn't care about the safety of the diode, but you should always be careful about your own safety... I don't encourage you to cut corners when it comes to that.

Never look directly into a laser, be wary of reflections, and don't stare directly at the burning spot for more than a second... also be careful about plastics, they become reflective when they melt.
You'll notice I soldered directly to the batteries... be very careful if you try this, use as little heat as possible, make the connection as quick as possible... use flux and pre-tin both connections... never solder to lithium ions or polymers as very serious fires or small explosions are quite likely, along with very toxic gases.

Buy quality goggles of the correct wavelength if the use of your eyes is important to you.

Re: How to build a red burner when you just don't

I see the meanest of a devil in that tunnel picture.

Re: How to build a red burner when you just don't

I made you guys a schematic for the awesome driver I built here... I call it the "I just don't give a damn laser driver"

you can add a SPST momentary pushbutton anywhere forward of the capacitor if continuous duty isn't your thing.

Re: How to build a red burner when you just don't

Hehe, nice.
Reminds me of what I did when the short open can diode I sent to Dr. Lava arrived back from testing.
I soldered up a DDL driver as fast as I could, soldered a capacitor and wires to the legs of the diode and powered it up with a NIMH 7.2v 900mAh battery pack I had laying around. I played around with it almost the entire day. (of course by watching the duty cycle since the module wasn't in a heatsink and I didn't want this diode to die like my bad SenKat diode had)
Right now it's still in the module alone being driven at 200mA and it's not in any kind of housing. At first I watched the duty cycle really closely, but after that I placed the module on top of a magnet (doesn't really help with heatsinking but keeps the module from moving around) and a fan. I've left it on for as long as 1 hour and the module stays at a constant temperature of 88 degrees Fahrenheit. I even took the temperature of the diode itself and found it to be 90 degrees only.
It has a total run time of 8 hours and 2 min. (yes I timed it every time I turned it on to see how long the batteries could drive it for before the driver started dropping out and found that the 7.2v 900mA battery pack drove it for around 3 and a half hours)


Now back to topic. ;D

I've had the same problem with the red matches, they're red because they reflect red light, so it's a little hard to light them up. At 200mA my diode is putting out 100mW according to DL's graph, and the only way I could light them without using sharpie was to focus the laser to the smallest spot right on the bottom of the head of the match.
BTW, what was the max distance you could light matches with yours? I was able to light sharpied matches at a max of 13 ft. From there on I couldn't focus the laser to a small spot. I was able to light one at 18 ft. but I had to turn the current up to 300mA which according to DL's graph the diode was outputting 170mW.

Re: How to build a red burner when you just don't

LOL This thread is one big LOL ;D Ghetto driver oh yea! How many of those diodes do you have left? how much for one? :-/ Or is the amount you could get for one not worth going to the post office? ;D

Re: How to build a red burner when you just don't

chido said:

...
...BTW, what was the max distance you could light matches with yours?...
...

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I had a really hard time focusing it, since the rod holding the lens was only held in place by a bit of double sided tape, and it proved harder to get fine focus the further away it was... I managed to light a match from about 4-5 feet away, but it took a few seconds to get the sweet spot in the right place because it was so wiggly at that distance... I guess if I left the laser where it was, focused it, then brought the match to the sweet spot I could have gone further.. but I didn't think of that till just now.

As for selling them... uhh, I dunno.. I've sorta thrown these to the wayside and forgotten about them... I think I have 3 of them, though I was having a hard time desoldering the pins from one of them and I ended up making it a big soldery mess.
I guess I'd sell the lot of them (including the 4 accompanying IR diodes and a the sleds) for $20 plus shipping. I'm in Canada mind you, so even the cheapest shipping option to the US is prolly more than $10.

Re: How to build a red burner when you just don't

Continuing on with the idea of pennies for heatsinks, I've decided to try this:



I couldn't get a good pic, since my camera has no macro mode, but you get the idea...
I've soldered two pennies in a stack, then soldered the head of an aixiz module to it... note that I pressed the diode in *after* soldering everything together... it gets quite hot and would most likely kill the diode.

I used a heap of solder and it has a very solid connection, which should transfer heat quite well.. and I'm happy to say the butt of the module still screws in... so I'll be mounting the pennies within the body of the case with the module on top, flush with the case. I think it can look pretty good, and it will give a nice solid way of mounting it.

The diode I put in it is one of those "short" open cans, which I don't plan on using for long periods of time.. so I think this should give it plenty of heatsinking... but I'll keep you updated.

Re: How to build a red burner when you just don't

You could make holes in pennies and then slide the module through several pennies to create a nice copper heatsink with direct conection on the module.

Re: How to build a red burner when you just don't

Just a thought.. It looks like long side of the case is 9mm correct? Doesn't it fit a Meredith housing then?

Re: How to build a red burner when you just don't

Zom-B said:

Just a thought.. It looks like long side of the case is 9mm correct? Doesn't it fit a Meredith housing then?

Click to expand...

If you're talking diameter of the Aixiz module, it's 11.8-12mm... just measured a few with my caliper and varied from about 11.82-11.95mm.

Re: How to build a red burner when you just don't

Zom-B said:

Just a thought.. It looks like long side of the case is 9mm correct? Doesn't it fit a Meredith housing then?

Click to expand...

No, it's 8.2mm in "diameter"... I only wish I had a merideth module to test though, way too rich for my blood.