Diode Takes a Licking and keeps on Ticking

you forgot to mention its an LOC

Things said:

Man up, diodes work fine in water!

Cheers,
Dan

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Well, if the diode dies, this project would have to be canned

DTR said:

I have one that just wont die either. I have not done any physical damage to it but I have pumped it with above 2A many times. The diode is totally screwed but still pust out 1444mW at 1.8A. This picture is the raw output of the diode with no lens.

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Hmm.. i'd consider that diode rather dead though.. surely it still lases, but the output pattern is completely fubar. Was that caused solely by too much electrical current, or did you mangle the window accidentily or something like that?

After all the abuse the spot is still normal. In all My years of electronics I have not seen another example of such a will to live as this. I'm not sure how long it will survive without the window. Does anyone know if it is now more susceptible to back reflection since the glass window is missing?

Benm said:

Hmm.. i'd consider that diode rather dead though.. surely it still lases, but the output pattern is completely fubar. Was that caused solely by too much electrical current, or did you mangle the window accidentily or something like that?

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This was one of my first 445's and I did burn the diode window while using an acrylic lens. Never came clean then I tortured it quite a bit with my new bench power supply trying to see what current would kill it. But every time I went over 2.2A it just turned off and then would come back when I turned the current back down. The beam is not bad when focused but the dot is horrendous. There is no physical damage to diode casing or anything. The majority of how it looks happened when I ran it @ 2.1A for over 1 minute. I thinks something melted in the diode housing.

DTR said:

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lol. it seems to project the € char. does it want to say us someting?

You could attempt to de-can the diode, just in case something melted onto the window (or the window itself was damaged). The output pattern does look like there is a glob of something acting as a very bad lens.

As for expected life and risk from back reflection: Missing the protection of the window increases chances of dust getting in there etc, but problems with back reflections and such would be any worse.

I had a LCC with a busted window once, and i just figured that it was useles - so i proceded to see if it could remove the can instead of trashing it. Expecting little result, i just put the diode in a vise, and ripped the casing off using cutting pliers. It came of surprisingly easy, hardly any force required. The diode lived for some time, until at another point i managed to rip off a pin (flush to the case), and trashed it.

I have these ir diodes that are tough as hell, i even hooked one up directly to a battery and still good.