soldering to LD pins

As mentioned in another post, stranded wire is a good idea.

And here's a way that even people with low soldering skill (or old shaky hands) can solder safely to short LD pins without shorting the LD pins

• get a socket - like an IC socket, cheap 8-leg dip will do, or transistor socket - as long as the pins are small; and gold plated would be wonderful!
• remove two or more pins by pushing from the backside.
• firmly mechanically attach wires to each pin - stranded is great but not necessary.
• then solder the wires, being careful not to get solder in the pin holes.
• put the LD pins into the socket pins - CAUTION - use anti-static procedures!
• solder (or not) the pins (safer to solder, but if a tight connection, not necessary)

You could even just put the pins on without wires, then solder the pins directly to a driver board if you want to save space. The pins will give it all better mechanical stability.

And if you reeally want to be tricky, put the pin sockets on your driver board and just plug the board onto the back of the LD though that may offend the purists who need it all soldered together :

Now, this idea I have not tried: would just using a whole transistor socket work? if slippage is a worry it could be glued on (w/heatsink glue even)...

DanQ

yeah i like to rip apart dead eletronic junk to see what i can salvage. i finally found a use for the little wire connectors. i just plugged my ld into one of those and stick the bare ends into my proto board. dont have to worry about frying a diode trying to solder it and if it ever were to get fried inside a pointer or something you could swap it quickly without having to do any de/soldering

Call me a purist or whatever you want to.. ;D It is not a question of being a purist but more so of steering people in the right direction. Your ideas are good for anything but laser diodes...one bad connection and it's bye, bye diode...

Gazoo said:

It is not a question of being a purist but more so of steering people in the right direction. Your ideas are good for anything but laser diodes...one bad connection and it's bye, bye diode...

Click to expand...

I don't think the latter is necessarily true... I do know it's better to give newbies a more conserative cautious viewpoint, but really, they aren't that fragile.

BUT you're right, for an electronics newbie soldering is best.
I guess it should be added that using the socket as a socket should only be done if the socket is known to be snug? or they only be used as a socket by an 'expert'?

imho, if the driver is designed with a capacitor and bleeder resistor, and if the person doing the plugging/unplugging has the sense to turn off the power while working on the dang thing... no problems are foreseen unless the socket is flaky during operation.

...and a newbie is probably more likely to screw up soldering directly to the LD pins, by overheating or static or pin torquing or... (or building their own power module!)

otoh, my real belief is that anybody who doesn't know to power down the circuit first and can't tell if the socket is flaky, should be soldering LED's perhaps but not yet LD's.

Which brings me to: why not make some of those driver boards with proper (gold-plated) sockets, for those hobbyists who can't / don't want to solder? It wouldn't take that much to make both ends of the board plug-in.

DanQ

If you have a cap on it and happen to take it off while its on but then you make sure to turn it off while putting it back on the cap will still give a fatal shock to the diode, or say if you turn it off then take it out then it acidentaly get turned back on and you turn it off then the cap will get charged and when you put it back on even tho its off it will get destroyed.

....lazer.... ;D ;D ;D

wooooooolazer said:

If you have a cap on it and happen to take it off while its on but then you make sure to turn it off while putting it back on the cap will still give a fatal shock to the diode, or say if you turn it off then take it out then it acidentaly get turned back on and you turn it off then the cap will get charged and when you put it back on even tho its off it will get destroyed.

....lazer.... ;D ;D ;D

Click to expand...

lazer, a proper driver also would have a "bleeder resistor" which discharges the cap

DanQ

I lost a few Senkat laser diodes using a socket. It took me a while to figure out why my diodes were turning into LED's as soon as I plugged them in, but of course it was due to a bad connection where the diode was plugged in, and the socket was not made for them. It is one of the many learning experiences I have had...lol.

Using a gold plated socket pre-soldered to a driver board is not a bad idea and I don't know why we never see them mounted to the board since the socket is available. Maybe it's because a socket would add length to the driver board, or because it would add to the cost, or both. Or maybe some other reason.

Nevertheless, I can understand why some people do not like to solder. I have older shaky hands but I manage to do it and out of 18 or so laser diodes I have sent to their respective resting place, one was lost because I applied too much heat trying to remove a solder bridge that formed between the pins at the base of the diode. But it does take a lot of heat to kill a diode. As long as one is reasonably fast soldering the wires to the diode the heat from the iron will not be a problem.

I guess it's to each their own when it comes to deciding on which way is best for them. Personally I will always recommend soldering as opposed to using proto boards and sockets.

and I don't know why we never see them mounted to the board since the socket is available. Maybe it's because a socket would add length to the driver board, or because it would add to the cost, or both.

Click to expand...

or maybe they're not made to be messed with by the likes of us

But it does take a lot of heat to kill a diode.

Click to expand...

you're probably right about that, at least the 'burners' are made to stand a bit of heat.

talk about shaky hands, I'm currently trying to solder up a packed .25" x .5" surface mount board
it was so much easier a few years ago! hand-eye coordination is a great thing to have, until your hands won't go where you tell 'em and your eyes can't see what they're doing even with the use of a dissecting 'scope... :

DanQ