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FrozenGate by Avery

Harvesting an LG BH08ls20 8x bluray burner

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Jan 20, 2008
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So, today my boss went slightly insane and decided to buy a couple 8x bluray burners... The only ones available in town were the lg bh08ls20.

Since I haven't seen anyone disassemble one before, I figured I'd post pics of the teardown process.

Here's the label on the drive:

2n1fhms.jpg



After removing the four screws on the bottom of the drive, here's what the inside looks like:
qo9g0g.jpg



Here's a view of the barcode and numbers on the sled in case anyone can make any sense of them:
vytmir.jpg



I suppose I should have taken more pictures, but I was understandably excited... At the base of the rails that hold the sled, there's a couple screws holding in a white piece of plastic that holds the rails in place. After removing those screws the sled and its rails pop right out. There is another barcode on the side:
dr5ug4.jpg



Here you can see the bluray diode itself, mounted into a small heatsink and glued flush in the sled. To get this out of the sled you'll need to remove the top cover of the sled (a thin metal shield that's glued in at each corner), then use a screwdriver to push the diode and its heatsink out from the inside.
e19aue.jpg



And here's the diode in its heatsink, removed from the sled:
28bsevc.jpg



To get the diode out of its heatsink I tried a couple things... At first I tried snapping the heatsink with two pairs of diagonal cutters, though the metal is too soft and there's not enough space to get a purchase on it. I tried dremelling it, though I was worried about the heat it was generating. Once I'd given up on those methods I tried the most obvious thing and simply pushed the diode out of its heatsink using the blunt end of a plastic ballpoint pen. It slid out very easily, though I may have loosened the glue with my previous attempts.

On the diode, there's a tiny little 2d barcode, too small to be legible at all, I can't even tell what encoding it is because it's too small to really see, but I imagine it's probably a micro QR code. There's no way I could possibly get a picture of it, the only camera available at the time was this cellphone, and since then I've mounted it in a host and the capacitor obscures the barcode.

Like all harvests, I used an antistatic grounding strap through the operation... If you don't, you'd probably want to solder the pins together so you don't discharge static into the diode.

I've hooked it up to a custom driver running at 300mA, mounted it in a jayrob sidebutton host, along with a jayrob "G1" lens, and I'm pleased to say it's burning black marks in my white painted wall from 20 feet away. It can burn a 1mm hole in a black floppy disk in about 45 seconds *unfocused*!!! Times like these I really wish I had a LPM.
 
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That is awsom! I gather this is what you were trying to research last night in chat :) Think you did a great job, are there any pics of the laser actaully running? I'd love to see it.

Also you should try and get hold of an LPM to get the power tested, also do you mind me asking how much your boss paid for the writer? And do you get to keep it or do you have to give it to him?

Nice work.
 
Very nice , bet your having loads of fun! You know I'd be happy to test it for you :D
 
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That is awsom! I gather this is what you were trying to research last night in chat :) Think you did a great job, are there any pics of the laser actaully running? I'd love to see it.

Also you should try and get hold of an LPM to get the power tested, also do you mind me asking how much your boss paid for the writer? And do you get to keep it or do you have to give it to him?

Nice work.

Thanks!

This one goes to my boss, since he paid for the drives, but I get to keep the next one as a belated birthday present. I'm just waiting on another host/heatsink/lens from jayrob so I can build the second one.

Didn't get any pics of the laser in action though, I had to borrow a friend's phone to take these pics. I should be able to get some beamshots on monday.
 
My 8x runs at 365 mW with 300 mA drive. These diodes can vary quite a bit.
Quantile reports 464 mW at 310 mA !!! Hot one...
I think most of us trying 8x are using Pioneer or Sony drives. Keep us posted on the LG.

Mike
 
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Well I dunno how he did it, but over the weekend my boss managed to kill the 8x... He says he never left it on for more than a minute, though I'm not sure I believe him...

I think I may still have issues to work out with my driver... It's based on a LM1117, though I think it may have some oscillation issues with the capacitors I've chosen... Bleh.

For the next one I'll use an adjustable rkcstr driver to eliminate that as a cause... Though, I'm wondering if maybe this is just a feeble diode, maybe a 6x diode with better optics or something... Bah. Nothing ruins a monday morning more than seeing a dead $300 diode.
 
Okay, so I got him to talk... Apparently he left it on for about five minutes at one point, then turned it off and on rapidly right afterward... I'm guessing that's one of the more efficient ways of killing a diode. At least now I'm less concerned now that my driver killed it.

At any rate, I'll do another 8x build in a couple days, and I'll hopefully get some better pics of the process.
 
Diodes (including LDs) can be modulated (switched on&off) at MHz-frequencies... so I don't think that's an issue. Leaving it on for extended periods sounds more damaging to me. Switching it off for just a moment won't allow it to cool down.

Well, one fact of life is: some diodes die early, some last a long time...
 
Okay, so I got him to talk... Apparently he left it on for about five minutes at one point, then turned it off and on rapidly right afterward... I'm guessing that's one of the more efficient ways of killing a diode. At least now I'm less concerned now that my driver killed it.

At any rate, I'll do another 8x build in a couple days, and I'll hopefully get some better pics of the process.

How was the laser setup? In a host with good heatsinking? Which host, driver etc. ?

Thanks for sharing the very graphic teardown! :wave:
 
Okay... So here we go again... Second time's the charm, right?

dpwzlt.jpg


It's these two screws which hold in the rail.. Once you remove them and the white plastic bit they hold you can wiggle the rail out and the sled comes along with it:

xg0ahv.jpg


Once you have the sled out, its lid is glued on in three places:

veracm.jpg


Always practice proper ESD grounding procedures lol:

r1al2u.jpg


Here's the naked sled, with the BR diode circled:

9tkas2.jpg


And here's the diode as seen from the inside... You're going to have to push the diode out of the sled from here, without putting any pressure on the diode itself...

nuza0.jpg


This one was significantly harder to get out of the sled than the first one. I actually had to use a heat gun to soften the glue so I could get it out... For this reason I DO NOT RECOMMEND HARVESTING THIS DRIVE

veaxw2.jpg


With a bit of heat and a fair amount of force the diode in its heatsink popped out of the sled.

30s7vyo.jpg


Getting the diode out of its heatsink wasn't that hard, I just grabbed the heatsink with a couple pairs of diagonal cutters, torqued it a little to get the glue to let go, then simply used my fingernail to push the diode out the back of its heatsink.
Into a jayrob sidebutton host it goes:

72r86x.jpg


And finally, le pièce de résistance, the beamshot:

9bmb60.jpg


Sorry it's a bit blurry, I was being badly burnt as I was taking this picture.. I think I may have a blister. This pic was taken in the showroom at work, brightly lit by halogen lights, with no smoke or dust in the air. The camera picks it up a bit better than the eye does.
 
Did you have a screw driver shoved into a wall outlet?

Holding a bit a of metal connected to it?
Thats a great idea :D!
 
Did you have a screw driver shoved into a wall outlet?

Holding a bit a of metal connected to it?
Thats a great idea :D!

Yep, that's a 3M Antistatic Grounding Wrist Strap, and I've clipped it into the only source of ground voltage available in the shop, the centre pin in a North American electrical socket.
 
My 8x runs at 365 mW with 300 mA drive. These diodes can vary quite a bit.
Quantile reports 464 mW at 310 mA !!! Hot one...
I think most of us trying 8x are using Pioneer or Sony drives. Keep us posted on the LG.

Mike

yeah this will be exciting to see some mA vs. mW plots on. Def keep us up to date.
 
I've hooked it up to a custom driver running at 300mA, mounted it in a jayrob sidebutton host, along with a jayrob "G1" lens, and I'm pleased to say it's burning black marks in my white painted wall from 20 feet away. It can burn a 1mm hole in a black floppy disk in about 45 seconds *unfocused*!!! Times like these I really wish I had a LPM.
Hey PL...
I think I know a guy that knows a guy that sells LPMs....:whistle:

Jerry
 





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