First Working Red Build

[Wolfman29]

Hey there everyone.

I finally got my LOC in the mail - I have been waiting for it for ages. But, during the wait time, I assembled a little host with a silly little heatsink and a DIY lm1117 driver.

So, I put it in, and voila! It works. It runs off of one 14500 li-ion and runs at 381.8mA. Not bad, should get some nice usage out of it at that amperage. Anyway, time for pictures!

And here it is in action!

:drool:

I know it's not that impressive, but this is the first *lasting* build I have done before (have built a 1W 445 before but that died on me, also built a 420mA LOC but that died too), and it's in an elegant, sleek handheld. Plus, I built *everything* for it except the host.

Anyway, my next build will probably be an identical 125mW 405 PHR! Gotta order that one soon.

What do you guys think?

 

[anselm]

I think it's great!
Is that one of those 1.50$ ebay flashlights that Ray J Neal was making heatsinks for?
Care to share more details about the build (heatsink, driver)?

I knew those lm1117 would be great do drive a red LD off a single LiIon.

 

[Wolfman29]

Yeah, it's one of those 1.50$ ebay flashlights ^_^

So basically, for the build, I couldn't find any copper or aluminum bars at my local home depot. So, I decided that I would buy a brass piping coupler... it turns out, the coupler's internal threads were just slightly larger than an Aixiz module, and the external hexagonal shape was just a bit bigger than the internal diameter of the host! So, it was born!

Basically, I filed down the internals and externals of the coupler until it was a press fit for both the back end of the module and the host. I stuck the driver inside there with a little, 5mm x 10mm aluminum piece I cut out from a computer's heatsink in order to sink the driver. It fit nicely and there are no positive contacts on the driver to the rest of the host (I am using a case negative build).

The driver itself is about the same size as an aluminum piece with an SMD LM1117, SMD 3.3Ohm resistor, SMD 10uF cap, and component 1N4001 diode. I'll tell ya, the driver was hard to make that small.

Lemme take a picture of the front end so you can see what I mean about the heatsink.

 

[Kevlar]

Very nicely done!! I love the true DIY of this build.

+1 for that AND soldering your own SMD driver!!! :beer:

 

[Wolfman29]

Hey, thanks ... Especially when I just have a crappy $8 soldering iron from RadShack =p

 

[Wolfman29]

So this is dead I decided to rip it open and replace the brass heatsink with a custom made aluminum one, and the diode died in the process. Anyway, awaiting my new diode.

 

[LaZeRz]

Wow nice! i love how its 100% DIY awesome

+1

 

[Wolfman29]

Unfortunately, it's not 100% DIY awesome anymore. The driver I built for it no longer works, either. So I am going to try to build a second driver, but for some reason, none of the drivers I can build work anymore. May be my DMM.... All the same, my *new* heatsink will be going with my next LOC, which will be going in it's own thread!

 

[Juniortore1]

Thats like how my luck with lasers is man! I made a lm317 driver, did everything right, heatsinked it, and tested current before use on a diode, hooked it to a diode, and it was instant LED, did the same to a second. I then made a PHR, to find out the micro boost was half dead and killed it. I just recently (matter of a week or so) got a rckstr preset to 340ma for one of them 250mW red rayfoss laser diodes, worked great till it went LED, figuring I killed it by too much soldering, I threw on another, and made that go LED. I then tested the current, to find the "preset" at 370ma. Im waiting on a PHR and heatsink for my next working build with a groove2 driver set to 100ma.

 

[Wolfman29]

Well, I finally got a working LOC build. In a hotlight host (can never go wrong with these) with a modified jib77 driver, heatsank, and run at a conservative 380mA. So it's running nicely now