Harvesting Diode Tutorial *~*~*

Alright, many people in this community have helped me so I am giving back and doing a writeup on how to harvest a diode from a pioneer-115d DVD drive which can be found here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827129018
There is also a 17$ deal going on on "open-box" drives, but I have no experience with that and can't tell you anything.

So lets begin:




1. First you will want to remove the screws circled in red on the back of the drive. You will notice you cannot remove the metal cover, first you must remove the front faceplate. Push the drive out with a paperclip in the front hole. Then push the tabs circled in green (4) in and remove the plate. To get it off you will have to remove the trays faceplate as well, by pushing the tabs on the back of it in also.




2. Now you will want to remove the "sled" from the drive. Remove the screws circled in red, and pull those rods and the sled out. Then slide it off the rods.



3. It will still be attached to the drive by a ribbon cable, remove this by pressing down on the side tabs and pulling it out as the picture illustrates. Then you can do the same for the other side of the ribbon cable.



4. Now that you have the sled separated you must remove the silver cover on the back. It is held on by the circled screw in red, after you remove this, yank it off.



5. Circled in red, is the red diode, and circled in green is the IR diode. Remove the red diode by pinching the glue with some pliers or wire cutters and then the heat sink + diode should come right out.



6. This is now the hardest part. You must remove the small PCB and solder from the pins of the diode first. I recommend a de-soldering iron (thanks senKat) or "solder-wick" as demonstrated in the picture. It is a copper braid that when heated next to the solder, absorbs it. Be very careful not to over-heat your diode. Keep it in the heatsink and cool. After removing the aforementioned solder and PCB, you must try to remove the diode from the heatsink. This is done a multitude of ways. One way is to use wire cutters and cut at the soft aluminum until you can get it out, this is what I did. You can also use a dremel tool, but I was too scared to scrape my diode or get it too hot.



Hopefully you end up with something like this. (maybe a little less beat up )



Good luck and thanks for reading!

-Erik

Awesome guide Airy! wish I would have looked at this before I harvested mine

Oh thanks! I'm glad someone liked it! A good idea would be to practice on the IR diode for the first time just to get the hang of it.

Thanks for that

That was amazing!! You are new, and already contributing to the forum

+1 for you!

I asked c0ld to make this a sticky

he did!

Thanks. In my opinion: if this forum needs one thing, its mods that will sticky important posts so they are not lost foreverrrrr in the mess of posts about "how doo iy mayke a gewd layser to bern my sistor!?"

airy52 said:

Thanks. In my opinion: if this forum needs one thing, its mods that will sticky important posts so they are not lost foreverrrrr in the mess of posts about "how doo iy mayke a gewd layser to bern my sistor!?"

Click to expand...

Yep!!

guys, we had mods, then they had to be removed for a reason. before you start complaining, try to find out why we no has none modz anymorez.

anyways, I wanted to ask if you found any model numbers or anything on the sled itself. Those would help.


regards,

amk

Nice job!

I timed myself harvesting today and got the sled out then got the heat sink w/ diode out in 10 minutes..... took 50 minutes to get the diode out of the heat sink though... using the wire cutters approach. Is the dremel approach any faster? anyone that has done it, how long did it take?

sk8er4514 said:

I timed myself harvesting today and got the sled out then got the heat sink w/ diode out in 10 minutes..... took 50 minutes to get the diode out of the heat sink though... using the wire cutters approach. Is the dremel approach any faster? anyone that has done it, how long did it take?

Click to expand...

dremel approach is somewhat faster, however its a bit harder. If you ease down on it, and you are not careful, you'll cut into the diode ;D ;D. And you gotta be careful not o get the Small metal bits onto teh can, or into the die if its open can.

I reccomend not using a dremel tool. use a file, jewelers saw, or wire cutters to get a side of the heatsink thin, without touching the diode, and then snap it in half with pliers. easy.

yea, I prefer to use a vice grip to hold it tight, then I clip away at the metal, then I pop it out, if it has glue on it, I use the vice to crush away one portion of the thin metal surrounding the diode, and then I can just pop it out.

hmmm alright. I'll try using a vice grip, i have one in the garage. thx for the tips guys.