Which diode do I use in this burner?

Hey I know that this is really simple but I know nothing of lasers. I decided to build this as a school project on a wimb. Which diode do I need to extract? Any idea how to extract it? Thanks for the help.

or this one?

Ok, we can't tell you anything because the pics are bad quality, you also need to give more info, what's the speed of the burner, and what company made it?
Try posting a pic of the entire sled.

get a driver and test them

Sorry about the quality of the pics. All I had today was my phone to take them. Its a Samsung - 20x Internal DVD±RW/CD-RW Super Multi Drive
from bestbuy. It put me out $70 so I really dont want to screw up the diode while removing it. Any advice as to how to get it out or which one to get out is very welcome. I will post better quality pics tomorrow morning. Thanks for all the support fellas.

Oh man, why didn't you just get the sony one from newegg? It's more than half the prize of the one you bought.
You should have asked me or somebody else before getting a Samsung. Those usually have a weird shaped diode which you can't use since it won't fit in any housing. :-/ I don't know if they still do but there's a very high chance that you just wasted 70 bucks.
Just look around for the open can diode, it has to look like this:



If it doesn't look like that then you're screwed man. :'(





EDIT: Look at my post here for the weird looking Samsung diodes.

Hey sorry for the delayed reply. This is a picture of the entire tray that I am looking at. Things have been moved around, but this ought to give you an idea as to what I am working with. I think that the black circle with the little gold one inside it on the right is the diode that I need to extract but I can't figure out how that could be done. Am I correct in saying that the component on the right is the diode? Any ideas as to how to get it out? Thanks!

For cryin out loud I dont want the picture to be that big. :-/ Sorry folks, I'm tryin to figure out how to size the picture down so that you can see the whole board without scrolling. On second thought, copy and paste this into word and size it down there. I cant figure it out. Sorry for the inconveniece but I really need some help with this.

If you're talking about the silver thing placed inside the black circle thing, I think that is a diode. Does it have a plastic window on the opening?

EDIT, and how big is it?

The two diodes are in the piece on the left, that has a lens in the middle. In the sled, that was on two metal rods.

But they are mounted into the sled from the sides. I think the thing in the first picture is what turns the DVD, but i'm not sure, because of the quality. The thing in the second picture is the sled. But the picture shows the focusing lens, floating on thin wires in the middle of magnets. Look at the sled from the sides, and you'll notice three parts where flat cables go to. One is a reading sensor, the other two are diodes.

Unfortunatelly, as Chido already mentioned, you probably won't find a normal round diode in this drive. Samsung uses flat square diodes, that are incredibly hard to turn into a laser. My first drive was a Samsung 18x and it had the square diode, the only Samsung i did find a normal diode in was an old 16x model (SGH552 or something like that).

the silver thing placed inside the black circle thing looks like the upper part of the spindle of the motor which spins the discs. the diode should be embedded in the object on the left, which looks like the optical pick-up with its focusing lens pointing upwards

Hey chido here's a better pic of the silver part inside the black part. From the diodes I've seen I'm thinking that this is the diode too. Can you confirm? Just copy and paste this in word and size it down. All it wants to do is spin. The black part is like a cover that I'm trying to get off but it won't come. Any ideas as to how to extract the silver part? Thanks.

Third time: That's the top of the motor, that turns the DVD. That's why it spins! This has nothing to do with a diode.
There are two diodes in the sled, and the sled is the part in your second picture.

Your second picture is showing the sled from the middle, where the focusing rig is - a lens floating on some steel wires between some magnets. (There are coils around those magnets. When current is applied, the amount of it determines how the focus will change.)

This lens does the focusing for both the IR and the red diode, which are mounted into the sled from the sides. You can not see the diode untill you dig it out. The can will probably be the IR, and the red will most likely be a flat square thing in a piece of metal for heatsinking. You won't see them, untill you dig them out.

It's possible the red flat chip's heatsink may be held in place with screws. You need to get the diodes out, but unfortunatelly, you would have to build a collimating assembly from scratch, as you won't be able to stick that diode into an AixiZ module. It's still theoretically possible, but i wouldn't recommend trying. If you still can, you should reassemble this drive, put it in a computer, and buy a Sony NEC Optiarc 7190 for harvesting, because it has a powerfull open can, like the one Chido posted.


EDIT: If you never saw a diode in person, you may overestimate it's size. You wouldn't be the first one. They are incredibly tiny. They just look big in the macro pictures. Maybe that's why you're confusing the spindle with the diode?

IgorT said:

EDIT: If you never saw a diode in person, you may overestimate it's size. You wouldn't be the first one. They are incredibly tiny. They just look big in the macro pictures. Maybe that's why you're confusing the spindle with the diode?

Click to expand...

Here is a pic of a laser diode next to a penny, these things are small!