Two diodes from DVD writers

Hey guys, so I am about to make two builds with these diodes that I just got from a couple DVD writers (an LG and a Sony), but I was wondering what current these things should be run at safely. I am not looking to make anything serious, just some nice pointers. The LG drive is a 6x GSA-H20L and the Sony is a 12x DRU-800A.

I am assuming these should be run at around 200-300mA?? Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

Hi,
You say these are 6x and 12x? These won't give you a powerfull laser. You need at least 16x for a powerfull ~250mW laser. If you want to use these, they probably only give a small dot. I don't know at which current they work.

J.L.

I understand that they will not give me a powerful laser, but I am ok with that, All I need is a nice pointer. Nothing near 250 mw

^^^Not true! Ive built a 250 mW from an old dell laptop 4, or 8 times burner. To be honest I believe it was the former - the laptop was from 2002...

Just build them and try for a current between 250 mA and 350 mA (1 AMC chip 350 mA)

You could also post the extracted diodes on here, perhaps people will recognise them. If you have an 826 or 836 you can go even higher!

Good luck :beer:

Ok great thanks a lot!!

The violent diode from the GSA-H20L maxes out around 150mA with a copper module and good heatsink.
You may be able to go a little higher. IIRC they fail at around 220mA, but that is on a big heatsink with a
S L O W ramp up. They are also hard to extract without destroying them, but well worth it IMHO.