Indestructable 22x ?!?!

Thursday nite while playing poker and drinking alot of Crown Royal, i had pulled my 22x Dorcy Jr out of my pocket and was showing off by shining the dot on the side of a mountain about 3 miles away. Evidently I ended up putting it back into my pocke while it was still on, and resumed playing poker and drinking Crown. Awhile later, i felt a my leg really getting warm.... i reached into my pocket and pulled out the laser, which was really hot..... the entire host was very hot. I thought for sure after turning it off that it would never lase again. I left it alone til Friday morning and pushed the switch and was amased to see it come to life as if nothing had even happened. I know i got lucky, but i still cant believe that it didnt kill the diode. I didnt have a thermometer, nor was i in any condition to read a thermometer that nite, but i roughly estimate the temp was ~120F. Anyhow, just wanted to share this, and i hope all US members had a great Thanksgiving!

Ted

hahaha sounds like a red laser to me! open cans are pretty tuff! what current is yours set at and what kind of heat sink do you have?

the do die differently from 405nm diodes. if it were to die it would usually die while lasing not on power up, at least from my experiences

its the one in my list below. I gotta change that 20x to 22x, i took apart my 22x DVD-RW and extracted the diode myself. It is running at 450mA, i have no LPM so i have no idea what mWs its putting out. I am using the Dark_Horse full length heatsink.

Ted

I also won $20 from my cousin earlier in the evening. I bet him that i could light a match in a sealed glass container without opening the jar, or touching it. He took my bet, i pulled out the 22x, adjusted the focus, then put the dot on the match head, which instantly ignited! ;D ;D ;D His reaction was OMFG! He asked me where i got it, told him i made it. So, i may be selling one to him soon.

Ted

Thats an awesome bet, i should try that one.

Montana64 said:

Thursday nite while playing poker and drinking alot of Crown Royal, i had pulled my 22x Dorcy Jr out of my pocket and was showing off by shining the dot on the side of a mountain about 3 miles away.   Evidently I ended up putting it back into my pocke while it was still on, and resumed playing poker and drinking Crown.  Awhile later, i felt a my leg really getting warm.... i reached into my pocket and pulled out the laser, which was really hot..... the entire host was very hot.  I thought for sure after turning it off that it would never lase again.  I left it alone til Friday morning and pushed the switch and was amased to see it come to life as if nothing had even happened.  I know i got lucky, but i still cant believe that it didnt kill the diode.  I didnt have a thermometer, nor was i in any  condition to read a thermometer that nite, but i roughly estimate the temp was ~120F.   Anyhow, just wanted to share this, and i hope all US members had a great Thanksgiving!

Ted

Click to expand...

Wow! On my 22x I noticed that the driver (rkcstr @ 420ma) got warm after about 20 seconds. I do not have heatsinking on the driver. I would have thought the driver would have cooked before the diode. Which is more likely to die first you think?

Xplorer877 said:

[quote author=Montana64 link=1227983326/0#0 date=1227983326]Thursday nite while playing poker and drinking alot of Crown Royal, i had pulled my 22x Dorcy Jr out of my pocket and was showing off by shining the dot on the side of a mountain about 3 miles away.   Evidently I ended up putting it back into my pocke while it was still on, and resumed playing poker and drinking Crown.  Awhile later, i felt a my leg really getting warm.... i reached into my pocket and pulled out the laser, which was really hot..... the entire host was very hot.  I thought for sure after turning it off that it would never lase again.  I left it alone til Friday morning and pushed the switch and was amased to see it come to life as if nothing had even happened.  I know i got lucky, but i still cant believe that it didnt kill the diode.  I didnt have a thermometer, nor was i in any  condition to read a thermometer that nite, but i roughly estimate the temp was ~120F.   Anyhow, just wanted to share this, and i hope all US members had a great Thanksgiving!

Ted

Click to expand...

Wow! On my 22x I noticed that the driver (rkcstr @ 420ma) got warm after about 20 seconds. I do not have heatsinking on the driver. I would have thought the driver would have cooked before the diode. Which is more likely to die first you think?
[/quote]

The Rkcstr is a linear-driver, which means that you supply the driver more current than needed by the diode, and the driver dissipates any excess current as heat. Conversely, the Flex-Drive is a booster-drive, it instead boosts your voltage to what you diode needs, so there is much less power that needs to be converted to heat to get rid of it. This is also why your batteries will last much longer using a booster-driver, than when using a linear-driver. There are of course advantages to the linear-driver as well, (others more wise would need to list them), but for my lasers, I use only the booster-drives, (you can also get away with fewer batteries).

I would like to think that your heatsink was solely responsible for the survival of your diode, but like thesk8midget mentioned, the open-cans are pretty tough, (heatsinking does help though ) .

DH

I use the dr lava micro flex drivers for my lasers.

And.....yes, the Dark_Horse heatsink is nothing less than awesome. The full length heatsink makes the Dorcy Jr an even easier host to mod.

Ted

I had my Dorcy Jr. 20x lavadrive build do the same thing.. it was on for about 45 minutes. It is running at 480mA. The host got hotter than hell, almost to the point of burning my skin.. this was 3 months ago and to this day it still runs perfectly

Glaserfan said:

I had my Dorcy Jr. 20x lavadrive build do the same thing.. it was on for about 45 minutes. It is running at 480mA. The host got hotter than hell, almost to the point of burning my skin.. this was 3 months ago and to this day it still runs perfectly

Click to expand...

I have thought about boosting up the mA's even more This thing burns like crazy now. I can take a piece of black tape about 1 inch long and move the dot across it in a straight line at a rate of ~ 0.5 in/sec, and it leaves a smoking line across the tape. It lights unsharpied matches nearly instantly.

Ted

They're not indestructible, don't sneeze while soldering. It rips pins out. :-[
Other than that they rock.

From what I've seen personally and what I've read here, long die open cans are nearly indestructible. They're probably the hardiest laser diode I've ever seen. Especially when compared with blu-rays. One time I gave a blu-ray a funny look..... and it died.

Glaserfan, that's really cool. I'm still deciding if I should build this or a blu-ray, and I'm pretty sure one of these would last longer.

I <3 Crown Royal plus its canadian.  ;D

I have super bad luck with them. I had one running at ~400mA and it ran for like less than 5 minuts total, no longer than 25 seconds at once, in a lab style heat sink, and it died. :-/

GooeyGus said:

I have super bad luck with them. I had one running at ~400mA and it ran for like less than 5 minuts total, no longer than 25 seconds at once, in a lab style heat sink, and it died.  :-/

Click to expand...

:-? If it died so soon I don't think it was because of overheating. Check you driver circuit and have a multi-meter in series with the diode to make sure it's not being over driven.