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Omega

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Hey guys, well, i finally soldered my rkcstr driver together, harvested my diode, and soldered it on.
added a 9v battery to it, and...
nothing, not even a glow :/
im almost certain i fried the diode getting the little pcb off, i was being assisted by a science olympiad coach, and he kinda took a bit getting it off, which exposed the diode to a lot of heat. it was still in its heatsink, but i think we roasted it :/
he never worked with LDs before, hes a power supply designer and such for Rockwell. So i should have emphasized the fragility of the LD to heat...
i have one more diode, i hope to harvest that properly and solder it onto my driver i assembled.
blah, no fun :/
 





nah, dingbat me forgot to order a test load. however i ordered the driver with a max output of 150ma, which is fine for a 803T LD
 
really now? how does this work, just attach the resistor somewhere or another?
and i put a 9v directly to the diode, i know thats bad, but it didnt even glow.
its dead :/
time to harvest the other one, ive learned from my mistake...
 
it helps to use a vice to harvest the 803T... cut the PCB ribbon and pry off the diode in heat sink from the sled.. put it in a vice and take of the PCB stuff w/ a glob of solder in two stages, there's two layers to the PCB stuff so get it off one at a time.

needle nose pliers are the main thing to use with the soldering gun.

the diode can take about 5 seconds of heat i'd guess before it dies. you shouldn't need to use more than 2 seconds of heat, 1 sec for each PCB layer.

good luck,
Kendall
 
yeah, i had a vice, but my coach/friend guy said he could do it.
it took probably a total of 30 sec of constant heat :/
ill make sure to do it right this time :P
 
30 seconds? Wow.. that sucker must have been HOT.

Typically I take a good pair of wire cutters and just cut the casing until the diode falls out. I use the soldering iron just to get the ribbon cable off the leads.

Well your not the first and won't be the last to accidently kill a diode.
 
hah, well it was still in the heatsink at the time, so i suppose he assumed it would be okay.
guess not :/
we removed the heatsink that way though, cutting off little bits till it popped out.
and hah. that is true.
 
I can pull the board off of a 5 lead PS3 in 3 seconds. Did the coach have a foot ball in his other hand? ;D Soldering is an art -- it needs practice and proper tools.
Maybe too bad BUT -- how much current is it drawing? If none, it could be your connections.

Mike
 
lol, thats impressive :P
and haha, nah, not that kind of coach. i stay far away from sports lol.
he actually is an electrical engineer, however he seems to be very uninformed about laser diodes. which is understandable because he specializes in power supplies.
im putting a nice digital temp adjustable soldering iron on my christmas list :D (http://webtronics.stores.yahoo.net/didisostc.html)
and pardon my supreme lack of knowledge of electronics, but how would i test that? im assuming i need a multimeter, which i have (analog unfortunately :/)
 
i think a good idea would be dont even use heat to clean the pins.

use a tiny flat pair of wire snips and cut the pins clean!!

i do that with mine and i can spend as much time as i want and i never have to worry about killing it from heat.
 
you mean like cut the circuit board away?
i was considering that, perhaps i should have went with my gut instinct.
ill probably try that this time, just to be sure i wont cook my last diode to death
 
Omega said:
im putting a nice digital temp adjustable soldering iron on my christmas list :D (http://webtronics.stores.yahoo.net/didisostc.html)
and pardon my supreme lack of knowledge of electronics, but how would i test that? im assuming i need a multimeter, which i have (analog unfortunately :/)
Click to expand...

A good soldering iron is definitely a worthwhile investment if you plan on doing alot of this.
You will be absolutely amazed at how much easier it is to solder when you have a good iron.
 
mhmm, and with that one i can turn the power down to a lower setting so that itll heat the diode up even less.
 
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