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So over the past few months I've been getting incredibly good at making lasers with the Dorcy Jr flashlight. Recently I bought 5 of the 803T blu ray drives from geeks.com before they ran out and I just made my first Dorcy Jr blu ray laser. I thought I'd help out some people and post a tutorial on how to do it.
First, materials you'll need:
PHR803T 405nm laser diode ($38.72)
Dorcy Jr Flashlight ($25)
Aixiz or Sure laser module (~$4)
Lava Micro Flexdrive Driver - Low Power($25)
Dark Horse Aluminum Heat Sink w/ set screw (~$18)
wire (free from Sure module or other source) OR jumper wire kit ($7)
Rkcstr Test Load
Tools:
Soldering iron & solder ($10 at radioshack or electronics store)
OR Temperature Controlled soldering iron (~$35 at mcmelectronics) Also if you want to do SMT soldering you can get the micro tip replacement ($3) for later.
Needle nose pliers(~$3)
optional:
Vice ($? at hardware store) OR C clamp ($1 at walmart). I recommend using a vice, as it's more safe for the diode's pins. The C clamp rotation of one of the sides can easily press the pins down and possibly break one off. If you do it really slow and make sure the pins are safe you can use the c clamp.
Helping hands ($20 at radioshack or electronics store)
Hot Glue gun ($5 at hobby lobby) OR liquid silicone ($3 at walmart / hobby lobby)
Ok on to the directions:
First, take apart the Dorcy flashlight as much as you can and slide out the head of the unit connected to the spring. This has the LED, driver and connections to the battery on it. Pull apart the black bottom half by prying your finger nail in near the yellow wire, these should come off easily in two pieces, save them you need them later. Pull off the reflector straight off and discard it. Take some needle nose pliers and twist off the LED bulb, it should come off pretty easy, I don't use these so I'm not worried about breaking it.
Now we will remove this flat star looking piece which can be used with some high power red laser diodes but we don't want to use this for blu rays so we'll remove it by taking your soldering iron and needle nose pliers to pull off the yellow wire while holding the soldering iron on its (negative) connection on top. see here for a picture
. Once the yellow wire is free, do the other side (positive) by holding the soldering iron on it and pulling off the metal piece or by pulling off the piece itself. This metal positive connection piece isn't held on to the base so it will fall off. I soldered it back on with the help of helping hands by putting solder liberally on the metal piece and springs around it.
EDIT: Also I've found you don't HAVE to remove this star piece, you can lay the flexdrive flat on top of it and hook it up to the + and - connection wires going to the star piece.. makes it a little faster and easier to do this build.
Now set that aside and we'll start to work with the driver and diode. If you haven't already, extract the diode. *Or if you buy a diode from me, no need to extract the diode!* Then place the diode in the laser module head and use the back end cap in reverse to press the diode into the module, a *vise* works well for this. Be careful when tightening it to not twist the end cap into the pins and bend the pins, just do it slow and make sure it doesn't move around.
Now get out the flexdrive and figure out (with included instructions) which hole is the batt + and - and cut 4 small pieces of wire about 2-3 inches long and cut off the plastic around the ends of the wires a few millimeters from the end. Take a red one and solder the + of the dorcy battery connection to the batt + on the flexdrive. I've found putting the wire through the whole and bending it around a bit then soldering it on makes it easy, just make sure to cut off any excess wire so it doesn't short out. Do the same for the - of the dorcy battery connection to the batt - on the flexdrive.
*edit: We will use a test load and a multimeter to measure the power output for the Flexdrive. Connect the test load (white = + and black = -) to the flexdrive diode + and - holes. Take a multimeter and connect it to the big (1 ohm i think) resistor on the test load and set the multimeter to measure 2V and turn on the dorcy flashlight. Hopefully you'll see the multimeter read about 75mA or so and you can adjust it with a tiny 1.6mm electronics screwdriver. You should set the current to somewhere between 120mA to 150mA for the PHR803Ts seems to be good. You can get really high output power from setting it to 180mA but this is the edge of where the diodes start to die quickly (depending on the diode of course, yours could be lower). I recommend 120-150mA.
http://hightechdealz.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&p roducts_id=10
Then disconnect the multimeter from the test load and pull out the test load from the flexdrive.
Now take the 803T diode to the diode+ on the flexdrive. Do the same for the - of the 803T diode to the diode- on flexdrive. Here is the pin layout for the 803T
now yours should look like this, (or something similar)
Now take the other two wires and solder the +batt on the flexdrive to the + on dorcy which is the metal piece we soldered earlier to the springs. Then solder the -batt on flexdrive to the - on dorcy which is the yellow wire.
*EDIT: Here's a schematic to make this a little easier. Pictures are photoshopped and from DrLava's User Manual, a post by Kenom, and HighTechDealZ PHR803T pressed diode pic.
Make sure all the connections are good and solid then squish the flexdrive next to the base of the dorcy connections piece, if any of the wires on the flexdrive look like they might short take a dab of hot glue and put it between the two wires so they won't short and it will be held in place. With the flexdrive near the dorcy connections piece, put those two half circle plastic black pieces back on with the flexdrive underneath them. like this.
Now we are almost done! if you have a heat sink this is the time to put it on, do so by putting it around the Aixiz / Sure module and using a tiny allen wrech tighten the set screws down to hold the heat sink in place.
Once you have this on check to make sure the wires connecting to the diode aren't going to short if you squish the module down near the flexdrive, if they could short, use another dab of hot glue to make the wires impossible to short and be held in place. I like to cut off the back of the lens to allow more light to enter the lens, like this,
Then put the spring in the module followed by the acryllic lens (don't use the glass ones, they are AR coated and actually hurt the output power) w/ focusing knob. Drop the assembly in the head of the Dorcy and use the needle nose pliers on the focusing knob to pull the heatsink&module up into the front. Put the Dorcy back together and FINISHED.
finished pics:
Thanks for reading all this and I hope it wasn't too hard to make this. It took me about 4 hours to build it but I had to extract the diode also which took a while. I will be making a couple more of these which will be for sale on my website soon.
I left the flexdrive at the midpoint default level (~75mA or so? ) for these pictures as my tiny screwdriver is at work, I'll turn it up to about 125 or so to get >100mW out of the diode With the heat sink the diode should be fine with proper duty cycles of about 2-3 minutes on, 1 minute off. Here's a demo video on a glow in the dark cup. and some move videos on youtube
Enjoy the laser!
First, materials you'll need:
PHR803T 405nm laser diode ($38.72)
Dorcy Jr Flashlight ($25)
Aixiz or Sure laser module (~$4)
Lava Micro Flexdrive Driver - Low Power($25)
Dark Horse Aluminum Heat Sink w/ set screw (~$18)
wire (free from Sure module or other source) OR jumper wire kit ($7)
Rkcstr Test Load
Tools:
Soldering iron & solder ($10 at radioshack or electronics store)
OR Temperature Controlled soldering iron (~$35 at mcmelectronics) Also if you want to do SMT soldering you can get the micro tip replacement ($3) for later.
Needle nose pliers(~$3)
optional:
Vice ($? at hardware store) OR C clamp ($1 at walmart). I recommend using a vice, as it's more safe for the diode's pins. The C clamp rotation of one of the sides can easily press the pins down and possibly break one off. If you do it really slow and make sure the pins are safe you can use the c clamp.
Helping hands ($20 at radioshack or electronics store)
Hot Glue gun ($5 at hobby lobby) OR liquid silicone ($3 at walmart / hobby lobby)
Ok on to the directions:
First, take apart the Dorcy flashlight as much as you can and slide out the head of the unit connected to the spring. This has the LED, driver and connections to the battery on it. Pull apart the black bottom half by prying your finger nail in near the yellow wire, these should come off easily in two pieces, save them you need them later. Pull off the reflector straight off and discard it. Take some needle nose pliers and twist off the LED bulb, it should come off pretty easy, I don't use these so I'm not worried about breaking it.
Now we will remove this flat star looking piece which can be used with some high power red laser diodes but we don't want to use this for blu rays so we'll remove it by taking your soldering iron and needle nose pliers to pull off the yellow wire while holding the soldering iron on its (negative) connection on top. see here for a picture
. Once the yellow wire is free, do the other side (positive) by holding the soldering iron on it and pulling off the metal piece or by pulling off the piece itself. This metal positive connection piece isn't held on to the base so it will fall off. I soldered it back on with the help of helping hands by putting solder liberally on the metal piece and springs around it.
EDIT: Also I've found you don't HAVE to remove this star piece, you can lay the flexdrive flat on top of it and hook it up to the + and - connection wires going to the star piece.. makes it a little faster and easier to do this build.
Now set that aside and we'll start to work with the driver and diode. If you haven't already, extract the diode. *Or if you buy a diode from me, no need to extract the diode!* Then place the diode in the laser module head and use the back end cap in reverse to press the diode into the module, a *vise* works well for this. Be careful when tightening it to not twist the end cap into the pins and bend the pins, just do it slow and make sure it doesn't move around.
Now get out the flexdrive and figure out (with included instructions) which hole is the batt + and - and cut 4 small pieces of wire about 2-3 inches long and cut off the plastic around the ends of the wires a few millimeters from the end. Take a red one and solder the + of the dorcy battery connection to the batt + on the flexdrive. I've found putting the wire through the whole and bending it around a bit then soldering it on makes it easy, just make sure to cut off any excess wire so it doesn't short out. Do the same for the - of the dorcy battery connection to the batt - on the flexdrive.
*edit: We will use a test load and a multimeter to measure the power output for the Flexdrive. Connect the test load (white = + and black = -) to the flexdrive diode + and - holes. Take a multimeter and connect it to the big (1 ohm i think) resistor on the test load and set the multimeter to measure 2V and turn on the dorcy flashlight. Hopefully you'll see the multimeter read about 75mA or so and you can adjust it with a tiny 1.6mm electronics screwdriver. You should set the current to somewhere between 120mA to 150mA for the PHR803Ts seems to be good. You can get really high output power from setting it to 180mA but this is the edge of where the diodes start to die quickly (depending on the diode of course, yours could be lower). I recommend 120-150mA.
http://hightechdealz.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&p roducts_id=10
Then disconnect the multimeter from the test load and pull out the test load from the flexdrive.
Now take the 803T diode to the diode+ on the flexdrive. Do the same for the - of the 803T diode to the diode- on flexdrive. Here is the pin layout for the 803T
now yours should look like this, (or something similar)
Now take the other two wires and solder the +batt on the flexdrive to the + on dorcy which is the metal piece we soldered earlier to the springs. Then solder the -batt on flexdrive to the - on dorcy which is the yellow wire.
*EDIT: Here's a schematic to make this a little easier. Pictures are photoshopped and from DrLava's User Manual, a post by Kenom, and HighTechDealZ PHR803T pressed diode pic.
Make sure all the connections are good and solid then squish the flexdrive next to the base of the dorcy connections piece, if any of the wires on the flexdrive look like they might short take a dab of hot glue and put it between the two wires so they won't short and it will be held in place. With the flexdrive near the dorcy connections piece, put those two half circle plastic black pieces back on with the flexdrive underneath them. like this.
Now we are almost done! if you have a heat sink this is the time to put it on, do so by putting it around the Aixiz / Sure module and using a tiny allen wrech tighten the set screws down to hold the heat sink in place.
Once you have this on check to make sure the wires connecting to the diode aren't going to short if you squish the module down near the flexdrive, if they could short, use another dab of hot glue to make the wires impossible to short and be held in place. I like to cut off the back of the lens to allow more light to enter the lens, like this,
Then put the spring in the module followed by the acryllic lens (don't use the glass ones, they are AR coated and actually hurt the output power) w/ focusing knob. Drop the assembly in the head of the Dorcy and use the needle nose pliers on the focusing knob to pull the heatsink&module up into the front. Put the Dorcy back together and FINISHED.
finished pics:
Thanks for reading all this and I hope it wasn't too hard to make this. It took me about 4 hours to build it but I had to extract the diode also which took a while. I will be making a couple more of these which will be for sale on my website soon.
I left the flexdrive at the midpoint default level (~75mA or so? ) for these pictures as my tiny screwdriver is at work, I'll turn it up to about 125 or so to get >100mW out of the diode With the heat sink the diode should be fine with proper duty cycles of about 2-3 minutes on, 1 minute off. Here's a demo video on a glow in the dark cup. and some move videos on youtube
Enjoy the laser!
Last edited:
