Building my first laser... and failing

[utn]

Hi everyone, this is my first post and my first attempt at making my own laser unit.

After I found out that a DVD writer has a laser diode powerful enough in it to actually burn things I had to make one. So I ordered a 22x LG branded DVD burner and an aixiz housing (no pot or anything else yet), took apart the drive and took out the two laser diodes, but they didn't look like the pictures of diodes that i needed, they seem to be made out of or have zinc cases on them. In the process of taking out the red laser diode I broke it . I thought I could extract the diode from the casing, but either you can and i did it wrong, or it was just one piece. Either way, there goes $25. Is this how you normally get these diodes? Do all or most DVD burners have the same style diodes? Should I try to get a cheap used DVD burner, or pay more for a already extracted one?

Thanks,
Scott

I attached a pic of the lasers that I have, the IR one and the broken one

 

[daguin]

Hi everyone, this is my first post and my first attempt at making my own laser unit.

After I found out that a DVD writer has a laser diode powerful enough in it to actually burn things I had to make one. So I ordered a 22x LG branded DVD burner and an aixiz housing (no pot or anything else yet), took apart the drive and took out the two laser diodes, but they didn't look like the pictures of diodes that i needed, they seem to be made out of or have zinc cases on them. In the process of taking out the red laser diode I broke it . I thought I could extract the diode from the casing, but either you can and i did it wrong, or it was just one piece. Either way, there goes $25. Is this how you normally get these diodes? Do all or most DVD burners have the same style diodes? Should I try to get a cheap used DVD burner, or pay more for a already extracted one?

Thanks,
Scott

I attached a pic of the lasers that I have, the IR one and the broken one

Yeah. This is how we get them too. The "zinc" looking part is the heat sink. You do need to remove it. There are several ways to do it, but they all involve some risk to the diode. For these I used to hold one side in a vice and use a small very fine tooth hacksaw to start the cut in the heat sink. Then I place a small blade in the cut and twist. Now I use the "PM TheMonk and buy one" method. It is faster and safer. It is also less expensive than having a drive shipped to me

Peace,
dave

 

[Jimmymcjimthejim]

The main cause of failures in DIY lasers is that the owners don't put love into their lasers.
..
Welcome to the forums!
As Daguin said, check out TheMonk 's sale on Long Open Can lasers here. He has a good reputation and people say that he packs the diode very well.

 

[daguin]

The main cause of failures in DIY lasers is that the owners don't put love into their lasers.
..
Welcome to the forums!
As Daguin said, check out TheMonk 's sale on Long Open Can lasers here. He has a good reputation and people say that he packs the diode very well.

I believe he packages them with love :-*

Peace,
dave

 

[utn]

Hey thanks for the advice. Yeah I think things would have gone a lot better if I had put some love into it, I was just too excited and felt like taking short cuts :\ . I think I'll give themonk a buzz and see if he can help me out.

Thanks again,
Scott

 

[daguin]

Hey thanks for the advice. Yeah I think things would have gone a lot better if I had put some love into it, I was just too excited and felt like taking short cuts :\ . I think I'll give themonk a buzz and see if he can help me out.

Thanks again,
Scott

Every builder in this forum has killed diodes. TheMonk just makes it easy for us, for these long open cans.

Peace,
dave

 

[Sefrez]

From the picture it looks fine. Did you break the tiny wires going into the diode? (the diode is the little rod in the open can)

BTW: It supposed to be open if thats what you mean as broke.

 

[daguin]

From the picture it looks fine. Did you break the tiny wires going into the diode? (the diode is the little rod in the open can)

BTW: It supposed to be open if thats what you mean as broke.

WOW!  It didn't even cross my mind that maybe he didn't know what he was looking at.  Sorry  :-[  This is absolutely a possibility.  I hope you didn't already throw it away.  Even if you did, it might still be OK.

Damn!    @ myself

Here's what it is supposed to look look

Also, look for the two VERY small wires leading to the laser crystal.

Peace,
dave

 

[Things]

Thats alotta diodes!

Do they all work??


/me could really do with 2 of those for his RGY, but his paypal is broked

 

[Mohrenberg]

yeah man, just buy the diode already harvested, it'll save you trouble. I just completed my first laser with a sony 16x diode and a coleman max LED flashlight that takes the two CR2 3v lithium batteries, the flashlight is $30, but it already has a driver in it, so all i had to do was de-solder the led and solder my diode into it and it was ready to go (apart from small mods to make my module fit snugly inside it)
it's small, it looks good, and it will burn almost instantly.

 

[Things]

Yeah. The thing is, I have 140mw of green in that thing, so i'd need atleast 300mw red to match it. the 16X diodes wont do 300mw alone :-/

 

[utn]

Unfortunately I did break the tiny little wires that go to the crystal. When I was trying to take the diode out of what I now know was a heatsink I pulled on the contact lead things and broke em.

 

[daguin]

Thats alotta diodes!

Do they all work??  

That picture is from TheMonk's last posted group sale, so yes, they all worked

Peace,
dave

 

[Sefrez]

Unfortunately I did break the tiny little wires that go to the crystal. When I was trying to take the diode out of what I now know was a heatsink I pulled on the contact lead things and broke em.

Then yeah, that would be almost impossible to fix.

Maybe just buy a diode for about 20 USD.

 

[originalbigT]

Will a Coleman max led light driver run a bluray diode?

 

[Mohrenberg]

eek....since that post i don't have that driver anymore, my diode died not knowing what it was that caused it i swwitched to a rckstr instead.....i'm still using the coleman max led host though.....
wish i had a test load and digital multimeter back then so i could of tested the driver that comes inside it.....
this host is almost too small for arckstr,everything just barely fits......i guess it would be nice if it were a bit smaller as the module ends up sticking out a bit far....i bet a flex drive would be cool in it though...

if i buy another one i'll make sure to test it before i rip it all out...

ok i got another coleman.....takes the same LED light but uses 3xAAA batteries and i put the test load up to the driver inside it and was reading 470 mA.....so...prob not good for red diodes.