Hey Guys!

Hey Everyone! I'm new here, and quite new to the world of lasers...It all seems very interesting and I'd like to know more about it. I've done some discovering and research when I had spare time by attempting to take apart those cheap lasers you get at like supermarkets and inspecting some of the parts... But I'm having trouble putting it all together! What does it all mean, basically? What does each part do?

Eventually I'd like to be able to build my own lasers, up to about 100-200 mW.


I know a little bit about what a Diode does for the laser and I know a little bit of where to get some and a little on how to extract them...but like let's say I need to get another and I don't want to buy it online, where can I go and get one from like a broken DVD drive, etc?


It'd be great if some of these questions could be answered! Thanks in Advance!

Well you can go to computer repair stores and see if they will sell you cheap dvd burner drives for like 5$.
But if you are as new as you say yo may want to buy a simple kit.
Doing everything from scratch will cost more in the long run.
also what color laser do you want the laser to be?
You will only be able to find red around you for the more exotic laser colors you will need to buy them online

Hi, welcome to the forums!

There's a LOT of reading that you'll need to do if you want to understand and build your own lasers, but it's very fun. The search function on these forums will serve you well for most of your questions.

To get you started, read this post. It's full of good stuff.

http://laserpointerforums.com/f51/i-want-build-laser-thread-52972.html

Have fun and be safe.