I have 5 of these drives and I have dismantled 2 of them. I have not built one into a laser but I have been talking back and forth with DTR asking the power of this diode. He doesnt know but I am mailing him 1 monday. Would be fantastic if you figured this out lol. I have a driver sitting around set at 200ma but I dont really have a way of testing the output of this diode.
DTR said it might be just like the pioneer 205 but I hope not. If these push over 500mw I'm going to be real happy lol but if its only 200mw or so I'm just going to sell the drives. I only paid 40 dollars a piece and I can sell them for 100
Here's an honest first light video. I'm using a current regulated ('DDL') circuit utilizing the LM317T voltage regulator. I got the schematic for the circuit here, around 2007. Easy to locate parts - 1 capacitor, couple resistors, and diode. LD came to life consuming 50ma.
I decided to run the diode at 75mA. This is a relatively eye safe power, and hopefully a long lived diode.
Tomorrow I've got to hacksaw the diode out of the housing and install it into a premium Meredith lens assembly. Then package things up in the RadioShack project box.
I have all the parts to build a driver circuit and a breadboard I'm just having real trouble finding a how to that I can understand. I'm a very visual type learner I wish someone had a how to with all pictures lol . but now that I've seen this diode give off some pretty light I guess I'll give it a quick hookup. What is the pin layout again? Top positive side negative?
Every Bluray diode I've ever seen has the same pin out: with the center pin down, the pin on the right is positive and the pin on the left is negative. The center pin is unused.
I extracted the diode from it's lead (?) heatsink. A rather difficult chore involving a pliers (one hand) and hacksaw (other hand). After notching both sides of the heat dissipater a few twists using a flat head screwdriver breaks the block. A small piece of tape over the diode aperture prevents metal filings from ruining it.
Here's the backend of the diode, after being thermal glued into the Meredith housing.
Now preparing RadioShack project box. Work continues.
The part I hate - waiting for the glue to dry. This old JB weld is curing very slowly. Maybe in a few hours I'll solder things up and test. Depends on the glue.. The switch is from the back of the LG unit.
Got it functional. I had to sand down the flange of the Meredith housing and cut the lens assembly tension spring in half to get the lens close enough to the diode to focus. If I'd had the Meredith 5mm to 9mm adapter thingie I might have been able to avoid this.
Here it is - 9 volt battery shimmed into place.
Next to the dismantled drive. I'll attempt to DIY a pointer with the red diode next.
