IR laser, how do i power it up ?

Hello,
i just extracted a IR diode from a broken cd player but it looks kinda weird so i don't know where i should connect the battery here is some pictures so you know what i mean :ImageShack - it has a small driver thing with a pot and i guess that the glass thing is the IR laser. any1 know where i should plug in the batteries?

Please excuse me for my crappy English

In all honesty, why do you want to power it up?

It's IR, which is fine, but it's terribly low in power.

It doesn't seem worth it to me I guess...

But o well... What are you planning to do with it? Will you need to be able to focus it?

Just doing it for fun and yes i have a magnifying glass to focus it.

alright...

well are you sure that you have the IR diode?

It doesn't look like any kind of diode I've seen before... the many pins are telling me it's something else.

But honestly, if you don't have a way to mount this guy, and set a proper focusing lens in front of it, you WILL have trouble getting any kind of "beam" out of it.

The lenses we normally work with are plano- convex. I magnifying lens should work to if you want a really small dot for about 2 inches of distance...

I recommend you read up more about diodes on the forum, and consider buying a cheap diode to experiment with. There are people here on the forum that can get you a high power red or violet diode for about (US) $12.

These diodes, (If this is what you have) aren't really good for much other than what they were designed for.

Just some tips...

if you want to move forward with this, I recommend you continue to read the stickys, and the diode compilation thread by Niko.

I hope this helps..

i'm sure this is a diode because it was behind some focusing glass and there was no other things that looked like a diode there i also have a focusing thing for a green laser that i can use for this ir laser to get a nice beam.

If you would like a "NORMAL" IR DIODE that is still in it's heatsink & mounted on the sled, let me know & if you'll pay S&H costs, I'll ship one to you, complete with ALL the optics that come on the sled. The only thing missing will be the PHR-803T DIODE....... rob

The diode may be below that glass piece, which is a diffraction grating. The diode will be a few mW in 780nm, invisible and very low power, forget burning. It will only be usefull if you can determine or find the pinout of the laser diode.
Getting a red diode from a dvd player would be usefull, a diode from a DVD burner even more, because of the higher power. A cd burner will have a high power IR diode.

As a first project, I wouldn't recommend an IR diode, not worth the trouble when you're new to it.

Hmm, threw it away now but thanks for helping x)

It's a low power combined unit ..... LD chip and reader in the same package, and holographic optics on the faces of the front "crystal block" .....

There are many different types of them, around, this one is SMD, but work same as the others.