How many diodes have you killed?

[Speedy78]

Wow thats quite the graveyard Blord. I will have to think up something creative to do with the old ones. Maybe chop the pins off and some how use it as the button on a side clicky host

 

[ricktrent4]

I have killed a lot doing testing on them its bad if they cost over a $100 like some 5w 808nm. I will have to keep them now that I know the have gold in them,thanks for that .I had a driver that worked on a 445nm diode but blow a 638nm 500mm diode the driver would not work on 808nm or the 638nm diodes.

 

[DragonSoulSong]

I've only killed two laser diodes in my life so far...

1x ~5mW, 650nm mystery diode from a cheapie red pointer...I managed to be genius enough (sarcastically speaking) to drive it up to (rough visual-estimate comparison against a 5mW 532nm laser) ~15-25mW or so before the little guy gave up...

1x unknown ~5mW, 780nm diode from an old portable CD player...I was completely noob-ish and idiotic and direct-drove the poor thing (unless you count the resistor that I put between it and the power source) off of more voltage than I really should have, treating it as though any other LED that I had worked with... I actually feel quite guilty about this one, even though it was a freebie... The little guy spat out what I would describe as a brief, sorrowful puff of light...a very dim, dull red dot on my work surface, then gave up on life and perished...

My build attempts have been quite limited so far throughout the years, otherwise my graveyard might be a little more expansive. I'm actually quite glad that I've learned a bit about constant-current drivers before more innocent semi-conductors fell victim to my nearly complete lack of knowledge in regard to properly driving LDs. Its thankfully been years since I have killed a semi-conductor of any sort. ^^"

 

[Speedy78]

I have a 10W f-mount 808 im going to use as a pump source for a lab style water cooled 532. If I kill that guy im going to cry lol

 

[JollyKillBill]

I haven't killed any although I did have a lpc-826 die on me, but I do have more things arriving soon so well see what gets murdered then :crackup:

 

[RA_pierce]

Hey Blord - how do you get the gold from them? I've thought about that, too but didn't think I'd be able to get a significant amount... but I also don't know the % of the mass of a 5.6mm diode that is gold.
I have about 16.30 grams in the picture below...

This is most, but not all of the diodes in my graveyard:

Most are 780nm, 808nm, and 5mW 650nm, but if you look closely you can see a few LOCs, LCCs, and a 6X.

 

[Speedy78]

My 2 diodes doesnt seem that bad anymore haha

 

[Blord]

Hey Blord - how do you get the gold from them? I've thought about that, too but didn't think I'd be able to get a significant amount... but I also don't know the % of the mass of a 5.6mm diode that is gold.
I have about 16.30 grams in the picture below...

I saw this article about gold mining. It involves strong acids to dissolve the metal and other chemicals to bind the gold. I am afraid we need a lot more diodes for the experiment.

Experiment: Can You Mine Gold From Old Motherboards? - A Real Gold Mine?

 

[Hemlock_Mike]

I stopped counting many years ago and that
was back when we were building 100 mW reds and --yesssss---
POT MODING!
HMike

 

[RA_pierce]

I saw this article about gold mining. It involves strong acids to dissolve the metal and other chemicals to bind the gold. I am afraid we need a lot more diodes for the experiment.

Experiment: Can You Mine Gold From Old Motherboards? - A Real Gold Mine?

I had a feeling you would say that.
That's a lot of chemistry for a little gold.

There goes my dream of having gold teeth made from laser diodes...

 

[Flaminpyro]

Just before the projectors came out with 445's in them the only place you could get a 445 laser diode was on eBay and they were $500.00ea on there :wtf:

Here is my pile only 16 in 4 years, guess I must be doing something good by comparison :crackup:

What diode would cost that much... ??

 

[ricktrent4]

I have a 10W f-mount 808 im going to use as a pump source for a lab style water cooled 532. If I kill that guy im going to cry lol

I payed a lot for a 10w 808nm c mount used the right amps from a good drive and just got 4w when it wet to 1w the sale told me I did something wrong and it was a USA seller

 

[ARG]

I believe I have never heard of a single mose 638! :crackup: Is it a special diode ARGLaser?

Nope, check DTR's shop. The one I had was a 40mW Sanyo diode back when multi-mode 638nm diodes were not yet available.

 

[TheDukeAnumber1]

2-M140
1-A140
2-9mm 445nm
1-650nm (300mW)

Took a bit to get past the learning curve but I got there

 

[Moistenator]

2 x PHR-805T
2 x LPC-826
3 x 70mW green modules

Don't ask me how I killed 3 green modules, haha!

 

[Things]

There was a time when we had to buy a $360 bluray burner to be able to harvest the single 6X diode from the sled in it
Now we did get the bonus of a 250mW red diode as well, but that was not the focus
However, we were willing because that was the ONLY source for them at the time

Besides, we were getting 200mW of violet light from them!
It was never going to get any better than that, was it :crackup:

The bare diode market that we all enjoy now is the direct result of the early "pioneers" in the hand held (pointer) hobby searching for less expensive ways to get diodes
It was a "cottage industry" that grew in China to satisfy our desires

Peace,
dave

It was worse when the PS3's came out, I believe a few people actually paid upwards of $1000 for them, just to get a 5mW 405nm diode.