2W Arctic with a problem...

Hey hey. Just joined but I've known about the forum for as long as I can remember. When it comes to posting, I hope I've done everything right or I will happily take a nudge in the right direction.

You all may hiss at Wicked Lasers but I bought one of their 2.2W Arctic lasers (445nm) and it's not working. You can only see a blue spot on a surface in high power mode, not even the beam:


I complained to the company and they sent me a working replacement unit, without asking for the defective unit back. Great! So I'm going to attempt to repair the defective one. I wish to keep the housing to reinstall parts, or I'll just salvage the diode provided that's not the problem.

Any suggestions or tips before I pull out the insides? Maybe some dismantling guidelines or something? Maybe a common problem that doesn't require dismantling? If I fix it, I could probably re-sell it and get some money back. The company said it's not worth repairing it as that will cost the same as manufacturing a brand new unit. If it fails, I can just keep the diode and build my own circuit for it.

Batteries are perfect, charger is perfect, accessible connections are perfect.

Thanks.

If batteries and connections are fine, then most likely a damaged/overheated driver or diode. In which case, there's no point of salvaging it.

But on the flip side, I believe there's plenty of suckers for WL hosts.

Just my two cents

Actually, some more information I just remembered!

The unit was like this when I received it. I was taking some pictures of it powered on and it actually suddenly lit up at full power which scared me, as if it was just a bad connection (but it must be inside the unit, didn't seem to matter how careful I was with moving it) and it had been on-and-off during that day. Hasn't been on full power since. I bought it like 2 months ago. I've kind of already scratched up the aluminium barrel inside that holds the diode module because it's glued into the threaded case.

From that, I think it's safe to say the diode is fine, but looks like I may have to cause cosmetic damage to get to the inside.

People have gotten these apart before, never looked into it though, might require a heat gun or something to loosen any glue or maybe its all press fit. The arctic host sure is a beauty, if I had one I would do a 462nm build in it, but the possibilities are almost endless, even a 1W 520 green if you had the cash