Welcome to Laser Pointer Forums - discuss green laser pointers, blue laser pointers, and all types of lasers

LPF Donation via Stripe | LPF Donation - Other Methods

Links below open in new window

ArcticMyst Security by Avery

My first red build - Bolly BL-8006

Joined
Dec 27, 2011
Messages
2,062
Points
48
Well, this should have been an easy build - but sometimes everything that can go wrong does and this was one of those times. I burnt a finger with the soldering iron, chopped up a thumb with a Dremel and generally had nothing but trouble putting this thing together.

It is a testament to the robustness of Moh's linear drivers and the LPC-826 (and red diodes in general I suppose) that it works at all.

I tried to over-engineer this thing as much as possible and I like copper. I would make the whole laser out of copper and then plate the outside for looks if it were up to me. Copper has awesome thermal and electrical properties and it is heavy enough to beat someone over the head with it too. ;) It is just good stuff. But it is expensive, hard to work and doesn't look as good as other materials once it starts oxidizing, so I have to use it mostly on the insides.

Now - on to the build...

First, I purchased the Bolly BL-8006 for about $20. I don't even know where I got it from, but it is easy enough to find it in many stores.

One of the reasons I chose this host is that I wanted to make a burning laser and one of the key tricks to burning, is to hold the dot very steady on the object you want to burn. Round hosts roll around. This is a rounded-square host and sits nicely where-ever you put it.

Here is a pic of the host disassembled. It is the black host in the foreground. (I am also excited about the green "hand grenade" flashlight in the background! That will be coming soon.)


Bolly Flashlight Host by tsteele93, on Flickr

Here is a closer view. One crappy thing is the tail clicky. It has the plastic retainer. I did not get around to changing this since I don't plan to run too much current through it. If it is a problem, it will be easy to fix later.


Bolly Host - No Roll Design by tsteele93, on Flickr

Here is where the fun begins, I decided to re-purpose a 478mA Mohgasm linear driver from a 405nm build that I was not happy with the power that the diode was giving me. I am going to rebuild that laser with >500mA and see if I can get it up around 600mW. But I digress...

Getting the mohgasm driver out of the pill proved to be a difficult task, I don't know what Moh is using for solder, but it is some tough stuff!

It is one tough driver though, because I burned, melted, cut and grinded all over this thing and it still ended up working great.

Since I wanted to over-engineer this thing, I replaced the aluminum sink that was on the ic with a larger, finned copper sink. I had to cut this in half with a cutting wheel as the original sink was too big to fit in the pill. It comes with a peel-back sticker that says Sony Chemical and Information Device Company on it, so I assume (hope) that it has a thermal adhesive on it. I pressed the cut sink into place. I'd guess that with the fins and it being copper that it easily has twice the surface area and twice the mass of the original.


New Heat Sink for Mohgasm Driver - side view by tsteele93, on Flickr


New Heat Sink for Mohgasm Driver by tsteele93, on Flickr

I also added some Xbox 360 Repair RAM Cooling Pads Thermal K Pads of this on top of the copper sink, I didn't have enough room for another copper sink, and I didn't want to bother with having to attach the aluminum to the copper so I just cut one of these into about a third and attached it on the top of the copper sink.

Next I grabbed my iPad and pulled up the pinout info for the LPC-815 (which is the same as the LPC-826 and other red diodes).

lpc.png


I soldered it up. (I had already tinned the wrong leads before pulling up the image above! :eek:


Leads soldered in place by tsteele93, on Flickr

You can see the Xbox thermal pads in the picture above. The brass pill was just there to hold everything up to the right height for the helping hand.

Next up, the heat shrink was applied...


Heat Shrink Applied by tsteele93, on Flickr

Here is a shot of the heat sink and the pill. Nothing special, my machinist just basically made me a 0.7085 inches diameter by 0.665 inches long cylinder of pure copper (C110 I think, might have been C101 - I'll have to check.) with an inner diameter of 0.469 inches.


Heat Sink and Pill by tsteele93, on Flickr

If you want to make this host, (with a copper module, the Aixiz silver colored ones are much smaller in diameter!) I'd suggest going a thousandth or two bigger on the outer diameter and a thousandth bigger on the inner diameter. The copper sink fits into the host well, but it is not a super tight fit. On the other hand, I had to press fit the module into the heat sink itself and I had to even do some sanding on the module to get it into the sink. It turned into a tedious process.

I used the original pill (from the Bolly flashlight, not Moh's) and squeezed the mohgasm driver in it. I had to take a Proxxon tool (Dremel) and open the pill up a little to get the driver to go down in the pill. Of course I did the usual soldering of the outer ring to the pill like in this picture. Except mine was not nearly so neat looking. How do you get the solder to bridge the gap, mine did NOT want to do that!


Solder Outer Ring by tsteele93, on Flickr

After pressing the module into the heat sink (using thin plywood on each side of the vise to keep from marring the copper too badly) I put it together and took a photo of the finished product.


IMG_0155 by tsteele93, on Flickr

Here is a closer shot of the copper module, heat sink and 650-G1 lens from Jayrob.



Copper Module and Heat Sink by tsteele93, on Flickr

Finally it was time to turn it on and see if it worked...


Lasing at 650nm by tsteele93, on Flickr

And a quick test on the power meter...


319 mW by tsteele93, on Flickr

Once it got to 319mW it just stayed there, and no matter how much I willed it to go up one more mW, I couldn't get 320. :cryyy:

So, using two 16340's and 478mA with a 650 G-1 lens, I was able to get 319mW out of this LPC-826 red diode.

Thank you for reading, and more importantly - thank all of you for the information you have compiled here to make this possible.

Now I am off to try and get that >600mW 405 build up and running!:D
 
Last edited:





gif

0
Joined
Mar 13, 2012
Messages
286
Points
18
great build TS, it must feel very rewarding, after all that and at the end it all just comes together and working :beer:

good luck with your next build
 
Joined
Feb 18, 2012
Messages
796
Points
28
Wait... how did you apply heatshrink AFTER soldering the wires :eek:

& good job on the build; I think it's a bit copper overkill for such a low powered build, but it doesn't hurt :)

Oh and real nice hostt! Hope this was worth that burnt finger (how's it feeling btw?)!
 
Last edited:
Joined
Dec 27, 2011
Messages
2,062
Points
48
Wait... how did you apply heatshrink AFTER soldering the wires :eek:

& good job on the build; I think it's a bit copper overkill for such a low powered build, but it doesn't hurt :)

Oh and real nice hostt! Hope this was worth that burnt finger (how's it feeling btw?)!

I slide the heat shrink down the wire (in this case they were sitting inside the heat sink) and then pull the heat shrink back up and over the soldered joint with thin needle-nose pliers and then heat them with my hot air blower on my soldering unit.

How do you apply heat shrink before soldering them? :thinking:

My finger is doing surprisingly better!

http://laserpointerforums.com/f44/ouch-burns-73476-2.html#post1060132

It really hasn't bothered me all day long.
 
Joined
Feb 18, 2012
Messages
796
Points
28
I slide the heat shrink down the wire (in this case they were sitting inside the heat sink) and then pull the heat shrink back up and over the soldered joint with thin needle-nose pliers and then heat them with my hot air blower on my soldering unit.

How do you apply heat shrink before soldering them? :thinking:

My finger is doing surprisingly better!

http://laserpointerforums.com/f44/ouch-burns-73476-2.html#post1060132

It really hasn't bothered me all day long.

Oh.. so the heatshrink was already on the wire but not pictured because they were inside the heatsink? I thought you somehow managed to put the heatshrink over the wire when it wasn't on the wire at all before. looool

And glad that your finger is healing up well :) oh gee were you serious about that self-prostate exam! oh goddd HAHA
 
Joined
Dec 27, 2011
Messages
2,062
Points
48
Yes! I was actually so happy that I remembered to put it on the wire beforehand so I didn't have to desolder the wires to put them on!


And glad that your finger is healing up well :) oh gee were you serious about that self-prostate exam! oh goddd HAHA

Ok, you made me laugh. I have one of those cards hanging in my shower that shows how to do the self exam for women's breast cancer and you flip it over for the drawing and instructions on how to do the testicular cancer self-check for men.

When I put one of the finger-rubber things on last night, it said they were good for this and that and it mentioned suppositories. That got me thinking...

But in answer to your question, no! I leave that to my doctor!
 
Last edited:
Joined
Feb 28, 2012
Messages
69
Points
0
I wish you would post the pics on the forum instead of flickr cuz my filter wont let me go on flickr....... :cryyy:
 

lman

0
Joined
Feb 23, 2012
Messages
298
Points
0
I wish you would post the pics on the forum instead of flickr cuz my filter wont let me go on flickr....... :cryyy:

here I re uploaded them to photo bucket
trolol-1.jpg
 
Last edited:
Joined
Dec 27, 2011
Messages
2,062
Points
48
I wish you would post the pics on the forum instead of flickr cuz my filter wont let me go on flickr....... :cryyy:

Flickr? Really? What isn't blocked besides the forum? I'll try the forum, but Flickr is so easy for me.
 
Joined
May 22, 2007
Messages
351
Points
0
@tsteele - Square case = no roll = win.

@AbramF15 - Seems like you're at work. Maybe you shouldn't be looking at forums on duty. tsteele can post his photos any way he prefers.
 
Joined
Feb 28, 2012
Messages
69
Points
0
No actually i'm not at work. I do lawncare monday through friday. I have a filter on my personal computer. And Yes tsteele can post his pics any way he wants.
 
Joined
Dec 27, 2011
Messages
2,062
Points
48
Well, I know flickr can be a pita, but I have a pro account so I don't run into upload limits or bandwidth limits, etc...
 




Top