Wow! Popping balloons and lighting matches! That's pretty amazing for these little diodes. I'm going to have to buy the rest of the parts to build my own Blu-Ray pretty soon.
Hemlock Mike, if you don't mind sharing some info on your Dorcy Mini mod - what extra electronics bits did you have to add? I thought the Dorcy Mini didn't put out enough voltage.
Gazoo --
I now have tried a paper match and a wood match, sharpied, for a light. I get smoke but no ignition no mater where I focus the beam. My pointer has a Po of about 22 mW. Some other diodes out there may be stronger and may do the job with that SPECIAL match.
I'll try some other matches. Someone with those DX laser matches may want to try.
Yuip --
You ask a big question -- I'll try to answer here.
FIRST -- I got my Dorcy at Target for about $20. I believe it to be a Dorcy Jr. I got mine outputting about 6.1 volts at 50 mA - this using various loads to simulate a BR LD.
I mounted an LM2936Z-5.0 Ultra LDO regulator on the boost board to get about 4.95 volts regulated from the supply. The machined Aixiz module fitted into the head includes a 2.7 ohm resistor which limits the current to my LD at 44 mA.
The electronics part was far easier than the machining and fitting.
There are a number of LDO 5 volt regulators available and you need to get what fits your design. The satisfaction is when you turn on the laser you designed and built !!
Mike
OH: I'm powered by a LiR 3.6 volt cell -- This helps.
Thanks for the info, Mike! I might have to try building one sometime. I always thought that the Dorcy put out only 3.5 Volts or so. It's nice too see it running a Blu-Ray diode, especially with a ~20mW output.
Mike,
I went as high as 50mw's with mine which is about 30mw's and it still would not light..but it was trying to...lol. I think it puffed a couple of times so it was close.
I finally made my BR laser It's freakin trippy . My eyes almost feel like they are crosseyed when i look at the dot on a white wall. And you guys are right - it can be focused to a pinpoint.
It's hard to explain but the colour and the focused dot plays tricks on my eyes. It's soooo cool. I think i'm gonna run it at a mild 40mA...I think that should be safe enough.
Got mine runnin at 30mA. Started to lase @22. I was able to melt a bit of foam from a black foam block, which you may have seen my 'real phaser' burnin into, but no visible smoke. This thing does focus to a nice tiny dot, but I think the reds are just the same at the same power level. When the red gets brighter, it's harder to tell you're actually focusing to a tiny dot and you may have over shoot due to it being so damn bright.
The BRLD was easy to extract from the PS3 housing. Just 2 screws and some scissors and that's it. Popped it outa the heatink. A quick desolder from the PCB and I got a free floatin LD. I wonder how this thing would look with real collimation, like through a filter. Probably look like any other laser dot, nice and clean.
Here it is for you boys... It wasn't any kind of special match... it's actually one of those matches that were impossible to light with my red lasers no matter how much I tried! ;D
Since i'm also getting a blue ray LD soon (i hope), i have a few questions about it, for those, who already have it...
- How visible is the beam? Is the human eye more sensitive to blue light, than red (like the green for example)?
- I read a couple of times now, that you guys are capable of lighting matches and popping baloons with it.. I wouldn't expect this at such a low power output.. Are you overdriving them a little bit?
- I was also thinking about using both the red and the blue at the same time, for a more visible beam. Does this help with popping baloons or not, due to a different focal length? Is it possible to get a nice narrow beam out of the two combined?
I would be very greatefull if someone took the time to answer these questions.. I'm sorry if they were answered before. I read through the thread, but i might have missed it.