2W Arctic with a problem...

[nitro]

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.

 

[jdawg]

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

 

[nitro]

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.

 

[3Pig]

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