445 killing spree :(

Oh well, please share my pain. I killed 2 445's in 2 days :cryyy:
First one died after hooking it up on the flexdrive. Until then, i didn't know the flexdrive needs a discharge too Smoke was emmited from it when I powered it with a 18650. Today the second 445 died. I was trying to assemble everything in a c6 aurora host and i manage to twist the diode pins. The negative pin broke and is now rotating. Fortunately, the 445 build for my friend was finished well, I'm shipping it to him tomorrow. Too bad it had to be 2 445 nm diodes in order for me to learn from my mistakes. The 3 PHR's sitting on my workdesk are laughing at me now. They thank god they were not in 445's place.

Have some +Rep to help the pain Sorry for your loss, they never even got to emit a burning beam of death ;(

Ouch man, sorry to hear about your loss =(

These sorts of threads make me really nervous. I'm building my 445 soon, once I get my kit in from Jayrob, and I've never build a laser before. It seems there are so many things that could go wrong. We should compile a thread with the steps to build a laser without breaking it - so everyone can learn from others mistakes.

ShaOwned said:

We should compile a thread with the steps to build a laser without breaking it - so everyone can learn from others mistakes.

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Very good idea. You would not want to assemble the laser on your own, if you are doing it for the first time. Especially now that you are building a 445.
Man, I'm so sad right now Why do they had to be 445 instead of phr :'(
Anyway, I hope this is a warning to other people. Be careful guys. Diodes are VERY sensitive. :undecided:

I broke a pin off at the ceramic insulator. Try soldering to that, like soldering the tip of a needle to a decimal point. Got it to work again, then the joint broke again.

Be careful, it seems that many of these diodes have weaker pins than what you'd expect.

It was scarey but i thought I broke my 445nm but luckily i just lost power from the battery connection to the driver

I feel your pain

Im sorry forya
8(

Sorry for your losses. It happens to everybody, it's just the price of doing business. Work with things long enough, and you're guaranteed to break them, that's just how it is.

Now that they're broken though, mind sending them to me? I'll send you postage money if you need.

Why do you want them ?

What size wire did you solder to the diode? I use 26 AWG stranded. 28 Awg would work too.
I've seen too many pictures of 18 AWG solid soldered to that tiny lead -- guess which will break first.

HMike

Silvershot said:

Why do you want them ?

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Pictures. Dissection. Science.

@ pullbangdead, the one is broken from the front, i had to push it out of the aixiz module. the other one is still in the module, with the one pin rotating. I want to mess with it a bit before throwing it away. sure you can have them when i'm done

eudaimonium said:

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http://laserpointerforums.com/f48/445nm-de-canning-macro-shooting-target-practise-52608.html

If the pin is rotating, this would mean that the 3 hair-like bondwire connections from the pin to the diode die will not be connected anymore. You might have a working diode die, but no way to get electricity to the die and no easy way to repair the bond wires. I've tried using a strand of wire from some fine-stranded copper wire I had on hand, but it was still way too big. I was working on an LPC-815 open-can red diode, $10 each, so no biggie like this 445nm diode. I tried soldering the strand to the pin and bending it to push down on the topside of the diode die.

If I could try again, I'm 99.9% confident that I could mess it up again. And on the off chance that I ended up with a working diode, it would be almost too fragile to be useful for anything.

If you still want to mess with it, it looks like one connection is on the top of the die, and the other is connected to the substrate/pedestal thing that is sitting on top of the metal peg.
Edit: here you can see what I am talking about the locations of the connections http://laserpointerforums.com/f48/445nm-diode-macros-52886.html

Silvershot I so feel your pain.:banghead:

Three of the eight I have gotten so far are down or deformed.

One got smoked with an acrylic lens so bad it looks terrible and wont come clean but it does work. just a big fuzzy massive sort of roundish dot.

One that I messed up pressing it into the Aixiz housing trying to get it to sit past flush with the wrong kind of tool.

And one that I got hooked up correctly and nothing(I am sure that I did something to kill it maybe ESD, I am sure my driver was discharged before hooking up).

I guess it is the price of experience.

did you try the smoked diode again after you smoked it?

I smoked a 445 diode and waited a few minutes, tried it again and it put out full power again

flecom said:

did you try the smoked diode again after you smoked it?

I smoked a 445 diode and waited a few minutes, tried it again and it put out full power again

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I tried taking it out of the Aixiz module and cleaning it. Resoldered it same thing.

It looks just as bright but when focused to infinity the beam is thicker and the dot is not relay a dot but a big fuzzy star. EDIT Here is a picture.(had to dig it up) It is the one on the right as if I needed to tell you.


After installing a new diode the unit with the same lens had a nice narrow beam and a very nice dot.(relatively speaking for a 445nm Casio diode)

Anyway I am keeping it for a future project. Was wanting to do something like a blue Jayrob Glow Marble Mini Light.