3rd times a charm

Woooot! As of today i'm finally the proud owner of my own DIY red mini dorcy laser. I got this thing working on my third attempt, after already destroying 2 other diodes. I might post some pics up later on, but as of yet it's nothing special. My next step is to try and build some sort of heatsink inside the head to disperse some of the heat. I'm gonna try and look after this laser, but I don't expect it to last very long as my soldering was very dodgy. I'm suprised it's not shorting as it is. For the time being, it's one hell of a laser though! So far i've been able 2 light a match and burn a hole through paper without any trouble. This thing is unbelievably bright (i'll be careful ;D)

So what have I learnt from this thing, after spending $60 on diodes? My only advice is, don't second guess yourself. If you solder a pin or connection, and you're worried you might have not done a good enough job, leave it! Don't try and correct urself until you're 100% sure there's no contact. Otherwise, as I have learnt, you'll probably only end up making things alot worse for yourself.

Well anyway i'll leave it at that. Any questions i'll be happy to answer. And a big thanks to SenKat for all his GB work, without his time and effort none of this would have been possible.

End of speech!

Congrats

PICS?

--DDL

I'll get some pics up once i've customized this thing a bit or added a heatsink. It looks a bit dull as it is. Maybe tomorrow after work I might take a few photos of it in action though. Until then, keep watching the skiesss!!!

Me too Trist. It took two murdered diodes (totally from my carelessness) before I finally got a working laser! :
As for your soldering, use clamp heatsinks on the leads and quickly pre-tin them. I always solder super delicate devices as quickly as I can.

I actualy used a heatsink clamp on my second and third diodes. The only use I really found for it though was when soldering the extended pins onto the diode. As for soldering the aixiz down onto the dorcy, there wasn't really anywhere to put it.

Well here's a picture as promised. As you can see it's fairly plain with no heatsink yet. Could someone please recommend what seems to be the most efficient way at the moment of dispersing heat? Filling the head with solder just doesn't really tickle my fancy lol. Also could someone please explain to me how people are measuring the output of their lasers? Do I need some special device or will a normal multimeter do the job? And finally, i'm still contemplating whether to try and solder a 47uf cap in there. Is it worth the risk? How long should I expect my diode to run without any further modification?

Sorry about all the questions, here's the picture of my laser...

Welcome to the toastd LD club ;D You haven't learned anything until you've burned out one or 2 !!.. You are on the right track -- keep going !!

Mike

Here's what I did for heatsinking a Dorcy:
http://barrettmanor.homeip.net:8080/DorcyLaser/Dorcy.html
But of course there are a million ways of doing this.

To measure the output you need a laser power meter.
You can figure out a ballpark figure for a GB or Open-can diode by measuring the current going to the diode (carefully!) and matching it up with Mike's graphs (see the Threads of Interest section), but all diodes are different.

Okay I've resembled some means of a heatsink. I simply took a spacer, wrapped it in aluminium foil to shape it to the right size, and placed it inside the head of the torch. The aixiz module sits snug in the middle with the help from a bit more foil. Nothing original but I think it should do the trick. Here are a few pictures..

Hmm. Unless you slather it all in thermal grease I'd bet the little air gaps will provide pretty good insulation rather than heat conduction.
I'd keep looking for a heatsink. Some people have had good luck with drill-stops.

So you reckon I should scrap it? It was a pain in the ass to make, and the spacer is sitting VERY tight inside the dorcy head. Only really the aixiz has a few gaps between the foil and the spacer. Good insulation? So you think it's doing more harm than good? What should I do guys

EDIT: I just covered the remaining area with thermal paste