SF-AW210 Jake21 Group buy

Wow, this does not sound encouraging. I bought two but haven't yet had the chance to remove them from the heat sinks. I was disappointed to see that they were each in a little plastic bag; there was no anti-static packaging whatsoever (again, presumably that's how they came to Jake). Below is how they look through their little plastic bags...

I should have something to report tomorrow

caraher said:

Wow, this does not sound encouraging. I bought two but haven't yet had the chance to remove them from the heat sinks. I was disappointed to see that they were each in a little plastic bag; there was no anti-static packaging whatsoever (again, presumably that's how they came to Jake). Below is how they look through their little plastic bags...

I should have something to report tomorrow

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That is exactly the way it looked when I got mine. good picture.
Hopefully they will run good for you.

Jimmymcjimthejim said:

I bought a diode from this GB also, and am going to run it at 160mA in my DIY Sonar laser. 160mA seems to be in the safe range for these diodes, what do you guys think?

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I ran one once at 175mA and it didn't last very long. Clearly it was abused though, because the glass window was broken on it. I think 160mA might be ok. Good Luck.

DTMF said:

i recived my SF-AW210 diode's from jake a few day's ago . they came in bubblewrap in a one of those white "sled" box's plus the shiping bag . they both look'd good nothing like the one iskor12 got .the 1st one died in about 15 min's @ 176ma . to me it looked the same as a 4x or a phr not as bright as a 6x . i never got to burn test it tho. i'm waiting for a new module with len's for blu-ray to show up before i test diode #2

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Great!! Glad to hear that they lookd good. I have tried to run them at 185mA and 175mA, and both of them had very short lives. (less than an hour) If it the lense from Jayrob that you are speaking of, then it should be a great burner, well that is if you can get one of these diodes to last. Good Luck.

Update - I've extracted one diode and mounted it in my TEC housing. Looks good so far... I've only run it as high as about 90 mA but it's clearly working OK. This is the first time I've worked with a diode extracted from a sled so I was worried that I'd damage something removing old solder and pulling it from the heatsink, but looks like I didn't.

the diode on the pic looks as if it is cracked

Xer0 said:

the diode on the pic looks as if it is cracked

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I think that is just a line on the ribbon that is soldered to it.

Yeah, Iskor is right - it's just the ribbon. The diode is fine.

I'm having a frustrating problem that the TEC mount I have is designed for pins maybe 1-2 mm longer than what remains on the diode. This has kept me from running the current above the 90 mA I originally stopped at.

Based on the threshold current (~37 mA near room temperature) I think the diode may be the Sanyo GH04P21A2GE (http://www.sharpsma.com/Page.aspx/americas/en/part/GH04P21A2GE/ - the page includes Sanyo's datasheet). Quantity sure does matter - DigiKey charges over $1000 for a single diode!

Just like to mention - I am going to be putting one of mine in a host and seeing how long it lasts. The one I received was slightly less efficient than that datasheet would suggest, however - I wasn't getting 210mW at anyway near 120mA (even compensating for optics loss).

Got my AW210 from jake in the mail on Friday, had time to hook it up today...

It's in good shape, no burn marks like that first one, the window is intact, no major scratches on the heatsink... My only complaint is it was in a little ziplock bag inside an antistatic bag inside a sled box... If they skipped the little ziplock at least it might have been protected from ESD.

I hooked it up at 170mA and it's lasing nicely... With jayrob's lens it's painful to let the infinity-focused beam touch skin even for a second, and I have a very light complexion.

I'll post pics later tonight.

Edit: Hmm... There's a very pronounced "die projection" around the dot... Not sure what to make of this yet but it's never been a good sign in the past... I'll keep you guys updated.

well that lil plastic bag is not my doing lol that's how they came to me and off to every one who ordered. but glad it working ok besides the "die projection" around the dot

pseudolobster said:

Got my AW210 from jake in the mail on Friday, had time to hook it up today...

It's in good shape, no burn marks like that first one, the window is intact, no major scratches on the heatsink... My only complaint is it was in a little ziplock bag inside an antistatic bag inside a sled box... If they skipped the little ziplock at least it might have been protected from ESD.

I hooked it up at 170mA and it's lasing nicely... With jayrob's lens it's painful to let the infinity-focused beam touch skin even for a second, and I have a very light complexion.

I'll post pics later tonight.

Edit: Hmm... There's a very pronounced "die projection" around the dot... Not sure what to make of this yet but it's never been a good sign in the past... I'll keep you guys updated.

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Shoot..my Nichia diode from O-Like had that problem....Lets just say it only ran for 45 minutes.

iskor12 said:

Shoot..my Nichia diode from O-Like had that problem....Lets just say it only ran for 45 minutes.

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Hmm.

I'd have expected a virgin diode that'd never been soldered before shouldn't have those sorts of problems... But anyways, my AW210 is still going strong after say 20min of total burn time... The rectangle around the dot bothers me though, not because it's ugly, but because in the past it's been an indication of optical damage.

Also I just realized I metered my output on the rkcstr test load's "red" setting, so I'm guessing I'm running at less than what I expected..

Alright, so I finally got around to hooking up my SF-AW210 diode. Since my DIY Sonar laser has been broken (Dead PHR at 160mA for half a year), I got this diode to replace it. I would have replaced it weeks ago, but I couldn't get the Sonar case open until today (which I had to drill into the button hole into the heatsink so it would get out..). So I start with the diode, still in the heatsink, and I attempt to break the heatsink with the two pliers method. It wasn't going too well, but I kept on trying. Finally with enough force the heatsink bent. It did not snap in half, but the whole thing bent. And the diode can, instead of a circle, is now an oval. Not to mention the window cracked in the process. Now, I'm thinking that the diode broke (no diode I know of has survived a cracked window), but I continue to attempt to get the window shards out. After around 10 minutes, I finally got all the window shards out (there were about 10 or so, in tiny and large chunks) through the hole of the diode. I really had gave up hope at this moment, but still wanted to see if it worked. I slapped it into an Aixiz module and soldered the driver to it, connecting the case pin to negative. I connected the battery, and it works! Although the PHR before it was running at 160mA, this diode is running at 135mA with the same driver (Micro Flexdrive V2). Maybe it uses a different voltage? Anyways now I'm really satisfied, I hope this diode lasts a long time (especially at the low current it's at).

TL;DR:
It works

You must have shifted the pot a bit. The point of a constant current driver is that it delivers a constant current. The diode voltage doesn't matter (within the limits of the driver, of course).