multiple 16x red diode light saber

I want to use a stock empty FX Darth Vader hilt on ebay and put 16x dvd diodes in it 650nm and no drivers just have a single resister to control current surge to the diodes... the diodes are 10 dollars a piece and I want to use 9 dvd diodes all red powered off of 2 D size batteries, if each diode uses say 300ma current and the D size batteries have a 8 amp capacity at 3 volts (2) of them what rating resister should I use to restrict current but still get the maximum mw out of the array? I want to put the dvd lasers in mini 8mm size brass focusable laser modules sold at Welcome to O-Like.com, Your source for laser products for 25 dollars for 10 modules and gut the original diodes and replace them with 16x diodes closed can style and use a single convex lens with a focal point at 3 feeet 4 inches for the "blade" that will BURN! I don't know the resistance value of the dvd diodes but I did once have a 16x powered straight off of 2 AA batteries with NO problem and it worked for years so I figure 9 dvd diodes from 2 D size should work fine right? Any suggestions? Leave a comment OK!

You need a driver, you will kill the diodes if you don't use them.

Especially if you need to ask a question like this...

It'll cost TONS more, but green is more visible.....10 50mw module would be $260. Just sayin, it's expensive, but it might be worth it...

Also, you can get 20X diodes at $9 a piece, but that's $90 + $130 (for 10 drivers) that's $220. With an extra $40 you can get one that's super visible instead, but only 500mW, your choice. Although, 3000mW red would burn, and be visible. 500mW green would burn and be like a green line....

This "thing" he plans to build won't burn anything but diodes. Even if he did use drivers it still wouldn't burn anything.

This is a bad idea, all he is going to have is beams going everywhere...

The whole point is to make a BIG red blade appearance that is truly retractable like in the SATR WARS movies and yes that would make multiple beams but with a removable convex lens set to a fixed focal point in this case just over 3 feet it would converge all the beams to a small point before expanding again 2 watts red laser light at a point!

It has been posted several places that a 20x red open can diode can reach a sustained 300mw+ at above 500ma but can it go up to 650ma for short periods to make 350-400mw with a merideth glass lens? What driver can be set that high?

Do you have any lenses that can do that? Because if you're harvesting from sled, then it's not going to happen. Those focus within millimeters, not 3 feet. You aren't burning disks at 3 feet away. Good luck, this will only waste your money though.....And look kinda shitty, imagine once the beams get past that 3ft focal point, they'll all start spreading out again.

That sounds nice, but in theory it will not work.

How do you plan to keep the beam from just going on into infinity? Lasers tend to do that.

Also, just throwing a convex lens in front of 9 diodes will not magically make them all diverge into a point. You would need so much alignment it would not be possible to fit it all in a lightsaber handle.

And, no. Adding a bunch of diodes in a general area does not make them total together. There is a lot more to it than that.

Also, even if the lasers were combined together like they should be (with beam splitting cubes) it still would not be anywhere near as visible as what it is in starwars. I doubt that it would be much brighter than a 100mW green, even less so if you want to expand it to have the thickness similar to a lightsabre.

I don't know if this guy still makes them, but this is the only thing that would slightly resemble a light sabre.

LaserSaber - Laser powered sabers! A brighter saber.

Edit to dispel recent retardation:

You need to read, you are not going to push a LOC over 500mA without a driver for any extended period of time. Putting 9 of them in close contact does not help the situation either.

zxn474l said:

It has been posted several places that a 20x red open can diode can reach a sustained 300mw+ at above 500ma but can it go up to 650ma for short periods to make 350-400mw with a merideth glass lens? What driver can be set that high?

Click to expand...

First of all, they will die at arround 500mA people run them at arround 400-420mA, 650mA would be stupid, and a waste of 9 diodes....or 10, you've changed it multiple times so I'm not even sure anymore. This is NOT going to work.

You guys are so negative! I'm sure if you had a high enough budget, something like this would be possible. You just have to figure out what to do with the beam so that it doesn't keep going forever and ever. If you shot some insanely high powered red lasers (multi-kilowatt) along the sides of a long thin durable-metal cone, that would give you some serious burning. At the tip, you could have something that would redirect the lasers INTO the cone. I know there would be a lot of light scattered about in the process, but that might actually make a nice effect. Once inside the cone, you could somehow transfer the energy from the beams into heat energy that you could use to heat up the cone itself. When you're tearing jedi's apart, maybe some of the burning could come from the lasers themselves, and the rest of the burning may come from the heated cone structure that is within the beams. That might work if you have a few million $ lying around.

A muli-klilowatt red laser? Well, you find one. Good luck... We're being 'negative' because it really won't work, and we're trying to get that point accross.

For all practical purposes, this is not possible. Even if you had millions of dollars you could not fit such a device into a lightsabre sized host and have it act in any way similar to what it does in the movie. The technology is not available.

What don't you understand? Even with drivers on all the diodes they are going to be each housed in seperate mini brass laser modules (dot) each collimated and all parallel to each other just clustered together in parallel beams coming out of the FX hilt without a convex lens all the beams are individual but very close together and the convex lens is just a temperarally add on lens that is removable so it is not on all the time just for special effects and increased burning power at the 3'4' focal point. Also why is it if someone has a idea do you have to be so negative anyway?

YouTube - convex lens - Th?u kính h?i t? here is a basic idea for the lens just a longer focal point 3-4'' instaed and more parallel beams of red dvd burning lasers clustered tighter together.

Hey zxn474l,

It's not to be negative for the sake of it. It's just to try and save you time, money and frustration. The questions you asked are not daft questions but to attempt a build like this you should really already know the answers to them. Even considering to try and run a single diode without a driver is not recommended, (possible, and you say you've done it already, but not good practice). How are you going to connect them? In series or parallel? In series you will lose volts at each diode so they won't all be equally powered and when one pops you have no way of knowing which one and have to test each one individually. In parallel and you won't have enough power. If you did supply the correct power, what happens when one diode goes pop in the system? The current jump to the rest could well pop another, then another, then another, etc. These are the basics that need to be considered first.

It's not to trash your idea, (it has been brought up several times before), but to make you think about how to achieve it sensibly and in a well thought out way. I would love to see a successful build but to say, "Go ahead with your plan, it'll work just fine", would not be the correct answer. You asked the questions, so you have to accept the experienced answers. It may not be what you want to hear/read, (and we probably all have had negative responses to some thing or another), but it is the wisdom of the masses.

A little rethinking and you could be on to a winner but rethink you must.

M

You are wanting to run 9 LOC red diodes at 650mA without drivers, that pretty much tells me you've done no reading because that is not going to happen.

As far as using a convex lens, it won't work. Just putting a convex lens in front of a bunch of laser beams will not make them all focus to a point, they need to be perfectly aligned for something like that to be possible. And if you were to take the time to spend aligning all of them, then what you would have in the end would not fit in the lightsabre handle.

As far as just having a solid beam, well that won't work either. The beams the diodes put out are not as wide as the module, and the beams don't leave the diode perfectly parallel. So, you would just have a bunch of beams going pretty much every direction but the direction you wanted them to go.

Once again, because I don't even think you read my last post, this is not possible. There is a way to do something similar, but it will cost a lot of money and a whole lot of aligning to do so, and it won't fit in a lightsabre handle. If you want to look, search for beam combining and beam expanders. That should get you started.