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FrozenGate by Avery

My DIY Red Shoebox Laser

wooooooolazer said:
That looks bad, you should never use aligator clips, if they come uncliped while its on and make contanct back to it, even if it is a nanosecond, the cap will charge to 6v from the regulator not having a load on it then when it makes contact it will discharge that nice jolt to the diode :(

I would still solder some wire to the diodes leg, just tape them each individualy with electrical tape so they wont be able to touch, it would be alot safer.

...lazer... ;D ;D ;D
Click to expand...

It's not as bad as it looks. Those gator clips have a good tight grip and they are supported from beneath and by the now glued diode itself. I suppose a good knock might jar them loose but that's it.

I hate soldering anything directly to the diode legs. Really bad idea. Use a diode socket. Well, I would have used a diode socket, but I've only got 9mm ones, not 5.6 or whatever. Anyway, I will be using diode sockets for all future projects!! No more direct soldering to the diode legs.
 





Woo is right you guys, it's better to just solder the wires directly to the diode, that way you never have to worry about it coming loose.
 
yeah i always just solder my capacitor leads directly to the ld leads to lessen the risk of the cap discharging into the ld.
 
WOW -- I'm so happy with how my pointer turned out.

When I ordered the diodes months ago I figured it may have been a waste of money. After all the diode is just a small but critical part of making the pointer. You still need to sort the diode housing/optics, regulator, battery type, pointer housing... but it's SO satisfying to see it working.

Thanks for the advice on soldering directly to the diode legs. I'm going to stick with the gator clips for now. If I do transport the pointer and am worried about the clips coming loose I'll simply short out the cap before transporting it.

Now that the diode is centered this thing BURNS. And I can focus the spot perfectly now.

I had to go into the hallway of my apartment to determine the LBPR (lethal balloon pop radius). I lined up three balloons at the end of the hallway and then set out to pop them all from a given distance. These were green sharpied balloons. From 25 feet all the balloons were popped almost immediately and with authority. From 33 feet I was still able to pop all three balloons but it took longer, up to 10 seconds. Then I went for 43 feet -- yes that's right 43 feet. I measured it with a tape measure. I was still able to pop 1 out of 3 balloons from 43 feet!! This is using no additional lenses. At this point I was forced to stop as some neighbors were getting annoyed. ;D

Really happy with the pointer.
 
HEy..um if its not too much touble,can u put up more pictures (up close to e@ connection/) --i really wanna make this, but i cant really follow the connections you made--piece by piece. And i looked at Dales schematic, but i dont really want to kill the diode by doing something wrong--thats is why i asked for close up pics of the connections. Thx, if it isnt a problem, ;)--i really want one of these! ;D
 
creanzworldd said:
HEy..um if its not too much touble,can u put up more pictures (up close to e@ connection/) --i really wanna make this, but i cant really follow the connections you made--piece by piece. And i looked at Dales schematic, but i dont really want to kill the diode by doing something wrong--thats is why i asked for close up pics of the connections. Thx, if it isnt a problem, ;)--i really want one of these! ;D
Click to expand...

<sigh>

Here are some pics of when I breadboarded the circuit to test it before soldering it up...

DIY_red1.jpg


DIY_red2.jpg


Look.. these are not hard to build but you do need to have some basic electronic skills. You need to know how to solder stuff. You need to have a multimeter and know how to use it. I don't see any point trying to make Daedal's circuit if you don't at least have a multimeter.. else what's the point as you're not going to know how much current you're dumping through the diode. Ideally you've also invested $10.00 or so on a breadboard so you can easily build up the circuit and test it before soldering everything up.

And you need patience also!! I ordered these diodes from SenKat months ago. I didn't do anything until I had the time, the money necessary to get all the parts lined up, and until I knew exactly what to do because I'd read (and reread) many of the threads here (including the 40+ page thread Daedal started on the basic driver circuit). Take your time and do it right.. you'll also learn a lot in the process.

Good luck.
 
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