DVD drive suitability ?

[flyeruk]

I will try them out this weekend. Im a bit concerned about the ir danger. I have some red laser googles.will these be okay for protection?If not, what precautions could i take,apart from getting some ir glasses?

 

[KiLLrB]

if you have a sony nightshot that sees IR you can use that to see the laser working(thats what i use) another trick if you have a cheap webcam open it and take the IR filter off the ccd sensor and it will see IR as well.

 

[flyeruk]

Im going to have a go at sorting them tomorrow. With the ir diodes,how much does the ir spread? Also, i have a housing with a lens that i could put each diode into before powering up. Would this help contain the spread of the ir?

 

[RA_pierce]

Im going to have a go at sorting them tomorrow. With the ir diodes,how much does the ir spread? Also, i have a housing with a lens that i could put each diode into before powering up. Would this help contain the spread of the ir?

The IR (actually more like near-infrared) diode lases at ~780nm and is a very dim, pinkish red. These diodes have similar divergence to the reds as they are both single-mode diodes. A regular aixiz module will work fine with these.

Install the diode into the module before you solder leads to it. This will help prevent the diode from burning up before it gives you any light.

In my experience harvesting diodes from various sleds, the 780nm (IR) diode "can" is almost always shiny and has a printed serial # of some sort on it.
Also, in most cases, the IR diode is windowless.
Hope this helps in identifying them...

 

[flyeruk]

Thanks for the info. I have had a quick look at them and they all have windows.

 

[flyeruk]

I have managed to go through the diodes and the first two i tried were the reds. I snapped the first one as the pins were very sort but the second one i have hooked up to the driver and it works really well. The info regarding the irs from RA_pierce seems to be good as the other diodes have serial numbers around them. Thanks for that.