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ArcticMyst Security by Avery

First Red build, combined with Blue 405; then back to red

Joined
Nov 10, 2010
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I am still a newb to the high power laser world. I freely admit it. I welcome criticism and ideas as I continue my building experience with these particular devices. This posting is slightly long, as it contains two separate builds with one working laser as the result.

I had some time to work with this past week due to freezing rain over snow that made the roads faster to travel with ice skates than a 4x4 truck with chains on all 4! With that, here is my first red build combined with a blue 405 build gone wrong:

Red build:

I started with a 16x memorex dvd burner that had a bad motor, so I reckon that the diode is near a 650nm unit.

The host is a Husky 9 LED flashlight (available from Home Depot in 6 packs for $10 around Christmas time). I chose this as my host as the light circuit board had gotten too wet after an offroad expedition. It is a side push button switch, which is nice for the first one.

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I drilled out the original plastic led holder and the acrylic lens after removing the circuit board. It all pushes out the front with the lens snapping into place to hold it all together. After noting how much of the original holder remained, I needed something to hold the module. I had a mini-mag reflector that remained from an LED upgrade, so I utilized the same drill bit to open it up to hold the module. I then hot glued the mini-mag reflector to the led holder / reflector before inserting the aixiz module. The module had the original acrylic focus lens in place & I had purchased a glass lens for my build off ebay. This plastic lens remained in place while I hot glued the module into the reflector assembly. After cleaning around the edges / threads, the glass module was installed.

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The driver was a $5.98 for 2 ebay special, item# 360312491416; figured that they would work for the first build. I found out after my 605 build gone wrong (see below), that the flex drive was the way to go.

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I set the ebay driver to have the brightest beam when facing sideways on a white table, my measurements with the VOM show that I'm getting 2.9V & 325mA at the diode with 3V input. It wasn't too bright when I shone it on the wall. It seemed much brighter when I connected the diode directly to the battery pack. I tried utilizing 4.5V input (no output measurements) and it didn't affect the beam brightness at all that I could tell. Here it is completed.

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Once everything was together, I adjusted the dot on the wall with a downloaded target from across the room (approx 15 feet away). My safety glasses arrived 24 hours later, so I've been able to test it out and find that it doesn't burn all too well with the ebay driver.

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On to my 405 build gone wrong... (Sorry, NO pictures on this one)

I ordered a pair of 300mW 405nm 6x blu-ray diodes off ebay as well as a flex drive preset to 190mA. Per the ebay listing, the diodes had a preferred input of 190mA. These also arrived during a long week of bad weather last week. I had also ordered a pair of glasses for the 405nm range from the same guy as the diodes. With everything in one place, I again broke out the soldering iron and started my 405 build. I had another aixiz module lying around, so I pressed the diode into that using a diode press (SLICK!) and soldered the diode to the flex drive. After getting a couple of wires hooked up to run to my battery pack, it was time to test.

The diode shone brightly and easily lit a match after focusing the beam and leaving it on the match for about 5 seconds (total lit time was 30 seconds or less at this point). I disconnected the battery and let it sit, the module hadn't gotten warm, so I went to go get another match. When I got back, I put the match on the top of my wood stove and rehooked up the battery to the diode. Nothing, nada, no light. I went to where I had my VOM & checked the voltage, 4V from the 4.5V battery pack. Pulled another battery pack, with new batteries, same thing, nothing from the diode... Checked all of my solder connections for a bad joint, everything was good. I didn't have any mini jumpers handy to connect between the VOM & diode pins, so I didn't get a voltage check there. I tried jumpering a 3V battery pack direct to the diode pins, nothing, absolutely nothing. I reckon that something pushed the diode over it's limit and burned it out.

So back to the Red Build & proverbial drawing board:

Now I looked back over to the red system that I had put together. I asked myself if the flex drive would do better than the ebay drive. Since I still had the soldering iron out, I dismantled the red host and unsoldered my connections. I then unsoldered the flex drive from the blu-ray diode. After a few more minutes of soldering, some more hot glue, and switching safety glasses, I repowered the red unit. WOW, what a difference, the light was at least 200% brighter than with the cheap ebay driver. While wearing the safety glasses (Eagle Pair), I can still see a bright red dot on my wall 20+ feet away! All of the side splatter is gone, but do NOT want to ever point towards a reflective surface, as I don't think these glasses would fully block it. I have been successful in lighting matches and cutting electrical tape with it so far.

Here's the parting beam shot:
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My other blue diode is being saved for a kit project, yet to be determined which one it will be. There are so many to choose from & I've gotta wait until closer to Christmas before ordering too much else parts wise. I'll read more into the 6x diodes and possibly work on a different driver circuit with a lower output. I don't want to burn out another one that fast, but would like one blue and one red.

I'm thinking that the currents listed for the blue weren't correct on the ebay listing. Or they sent me the wrong ones; I may never know for sure. Lesson's learned.
 

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Joined
Nov 10, 2010
Messages
21
Points
0
Sorry the photos are not working. I must not have enough posts yet to get them operational.

Edit - Got them working by attaching and linking to the attachment. Utilizing Flickr just didn't want to work properly... Oh well.
 
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