An Xbox HD sled bearing an 803t arrived in my letterbox yesterday in the pm. It was the last part I'd ordered to arrive, so, after the kids went to sleep I cranked on some 'Monster Magnet' and stuff like that and started work.
The BR came out of the sled and heatsink easily enough, and I managed to stuff it into the aixiz blank module. This is where my troubles began.
I had crushed the PCB in my vicelike grip to such an extent that it came away in pieces when I got the soldering iron in amongst the pins. It took me around 2 hours to get all the little threads of copper, resin, silicon and whatever else makes up crushed PCBs out of there. It took so long, not entirely because of my frequent adjournments to refresh the old mug of Tequila and lemonade, but mainly because these tired old eyes can't see crap that small anymore
Even with 3x magnifying reading glasses I struggled - well I could see the 3 little pins fine with the glasses on, but each time I looked away to pick up the soldering iron, pliers or scraping device, my eyes almost exploded from being unable to focus. Returning the eyes to 3" from the LD was almost as painful. So, I was sure that with all this heat I was pumping (although as intermittantly as my patience would allow) into the LD it was bound to be as fried as a fried thing's fried bits. But I persisted...
Ultimately sucessful, my next step was jamming a (150ma max) adjustable Micro-Drive between it and a 9V battery. Although I did also order a dummy load from Ryan (who was extremely helpful) I didn't use it because I didn't want to charge the cap with LD blowing potential and forget to short it out later. That, and in my rather ham-fisted approach to this kind of stuff; knowing others have driven their BRs significantly higher than 150, I saw no marginal utility in starting off like a wimp.
Man, was I rapt when this thing lit up! I stuck the mulit-meter in there and saw 141ma at VR min. I screwed in the lens and had a hugely bright but disappointingly large image (>1")the far wall. You know what a spiderweb looks like with dew or rain on it? Just like this, only blindingly bright violet - anyway, that's a story for another thread.
I decided to solder in a switch so I wouldn't be twiddling wires together when I took it outside in the dark. Did that and - - - dead! Heart sank...
Turns out one of the joints from the driver to the LD was dry, because the beam came back on with some wiggling. Yay! Soldered it back up and it worked great. A pale but visible beam in the post rainal slightly humid night aire. Enjoyed painting violet spiderwebs over the neighbourhood for a while and then went in to do some work on my host (also another story).
So, tonight I'm working on the host again and decide to put some wires between the LD and driver and ditch the back cover of the module (rather than just leaving them hard-soldered together) as I wanted to be able to easily access the VR when I change one of the resitors to bring the driver up to about 200ma - I thought I should keep things at a sensible level (circa 190ma?) at least until I machine up a new heatsinkt.
But, before I could get the soldering iron close enough to inflict injury, the LR just stopped. Just like that. All by itself. Ack! So I wiggled the LD and got a flicker - the joint from it to the driver had cracked off again! Soldered it back up. Dead as a dodo :'( Unlike last night, the cap musta zapped. Ack! to the irony...
Powered up again an hour or so later and got a flicker of light, but it certainly didn't lase. Must have been its death rattle, because now it's not doing anything.
I'll have to order me up another sled, and gnaw my fingernails off for the 10 days or so until it gets here from the US of A. Ack! Better order a couple, given my propensity to screw things up...
At least I'll have plenty of time to finish knocking up (so to speak) my host. 1st hostal iteration will be plain vanalla; really just mockup. But V2 will be a carbon fibre and machined aluminium 60s icon (but that, too, will be another story) :-X
Regards
Richard
The BR came out of the sled and heatsink easily enough, and I managed to stuff it into the aixiz blank module. This is where my troubles began.
I had crushed the PCB in my vicelike grip to such an extent that it came away in pieces when I got the soldering iron in amongst the pins. It took me around 2 hours to get all the little threads of copper, resin, silicon and whatever else makes up crushed PCBs out of there. It took so long, not entirely because of my frequent adjournments to refresh the old mug of Tequila and lemonade, but mainly because these tired old eyes can't see crap that small anymore
Even with 3x magnifying reading glasses I struggled - well I could see the 3 little pins fine with the glasses on, but each time I looked away to pick up the soldering iron, pliers or scraping device, my eyes almost exploded from being unable to focus. Returning the eyes to 3" from the LD was almost as painful. So, I was sure that with all this heat I was pumping (although as intermittantly as my patience would allow) into the LD it was bound to be as fried as a fried thing's fried bits. But I persisted...Ultimately sucessful, my next step was jamming a (150ma max) adjustable Micro-Drive between it and a 9V battery. Although I did also order a dummy load from Ryan (who was extremely helpful) I didn't use it because I didn't want to charge the cap with LD blowing potential and forget to short it out later. That, and in my rather ham-fisted approach to this kind of stuff; knowing others have driven their BRs significantly higher than 150, I saw no marginal utility in starting off like a wimp.
Man, was I rapt when this thing lit up! I stuck the mulit-meter in there and saw 141ma at VR min. I screwed in the lens and had a hugely bright but disappointingly large image (>1")the far wall. You know what a spiderweb looks like with dew or rain on it? Just like this, only blindingly bright violet - anyway, that's a story for another thread.
I decided to solder in a switch so I wouldn't be twiddling wires together when I took it outside in the dark. Did that and - - - dead! Heart sank...
Turns out one of the joints from the driver to the LD was dry, because the beam came back on with some wiggling. Yay! Soldered it back up and it worked great. A pale but visible beam in the post rainal slightly humid night aire. Enjoyed painting violet spiderwebs over the neighbourhood for a while and then went in to do some work on my host (also another story).
So, tonight I'm working on the host again and decide to put some wires between the LD and driver and ditch the back cover of the module (rather than just leaving them hard-soldered together) as I wanted to be able to easily access the VR when I change one of the resitors to bring the driver up to about 200ma - I thought I should keep things at a sensible level (circa 190ma?) at least until I machine up a new heatsinkt.
But, before I could get the soldering iron close enough to inflict injury, the LR just stopped. Just like that. All by itself. Ack! So I wiggled the LD and got a flicker - the joint from it to the driver had cracked off again! Soldered it back up. Dead as a dodo :'( Unlike last night, the cap musta zapped. Ack! to the irony...
Powered up again an hour or so later and got a flicker of light, but it certainly didn't lase. Must have been its death rattle, because now it's not doing anything.
I'll have to order me up another sled, and gnaw my fingernails off for the 10 days or so until it gets here from the US of A. Ack! Better order a couple, given my propensity to screw things up...
At least I'll have plenty of time to finish knocking up (so to speak) my host. 1st hostal iteration will be plain vanalla; really just mockup. But V2 will be a carbon fibre and machined aluminium 60s icon (but that, too, will be another story) :-X
Regards
Richard
