Hi.
This thread briefly details my first experience of building anything electronic. My background is mechanical engineering, and I've always stayed clear of the voodoo witchcraft also known as electronics, or more accurately, circuits.
Bear in mind I hadn't so much as soldered a thing until I got around to this, my point being that I strongly recommend to anyone who might have been put off by the apparent difficulty of electronics to just have a go.
There's a lot of jargon, and a few basic principles you need to get to grips with, but the amount of info available in general, not to mention what's already available on this forum is a lot more than you need to make a productive start.
As well as googling a lot, and browsing this forum, I also used a book called "Starting Electronics" by Keith Brindley, which is excellent and takes you step by step, providing exercises at the end of each chapter to test yourself.
Huge thanks also to those members that helped point out errors, and clear up confusion when I got stuck now and then. Sometimes you really can't see the forest for the trees, and an experienced perspective can quickly set you straight. Just make sure you have a proper go at sorting it yourself first
Right then, on with the build.
I used a "DDL" driver design created by a guy called "Daedal", I believe, as it crops up often and seems well recommended. To be honest, it has only a few parts, and looked easy enough to start with.
The next step was to buy the parts, and I found a couple of great UK companies. For general electronic parts I used bitsbox.co.uk that I can't recommend highly enough. The parts are amazing value, almost a tenth of the cost compared to Maplin (the UK equivalent to RadioShack), and the service was faultless.
For the actual laser parts like the laser diodes, modules, and some great value heat-shrink tubing, I used a company called odicforce.com. Again, for a good range of components, and great prices, I was really impressed. Could easily have overspent by a lot here, but I managed to restrain myself to only what I really needed.
Once the bits arrived I put them together as per the schematic above, in a breadboard. Just be careful to plug the power in correctly, as I think I initially shorted mine as nothing happened when trying to measure the current/voltage and the battery got seriously hot, quickly. I realised I'd plugged both leads into the same line on the breadboard. It's certainly one way of figuring out the layout, but probably not the best. I'd recommend reading the instructions first.
This picture is a later one taken after testing the driver properly (as detailed further below), and includes my first red laser module I'd built using a cheap Aixiz module housing, and a harvested red LD from a scrapped DVD burner.
I can tell you, trying to solder diode pins as your first ever exercise in soldering is a bit masochistic. I'd recommend trying something a bit less demanding. I managed to kill a smaller LD I found in the same scrapped DVD drive by completely smothering the pins in solder.
Next, it was time to build a test load to check the driver and set the current. I used these schematics to build it.
This one shows how to plug it into your circuit.
This is my actual test load built onto a PCB.
You might notice the copper power lines underneath each diode linked in a line have been ground/scratched away to break the connection. This is because I soldered the diodes incorrectly.
I was supposed to solder them across the copper lines, bridging two separate lines instead of along the same one. After some help from some members kind enough not to kick off at my ridiculous blunder, I broke the connections between each linearly positioned diode connection, as recommended. Saving me the effort of having to take it apart and trying again. Thanks again guys
Next, I plugged my now working test load into my breadboarded DDL driver.
It only bloody worked!!
Well, after tweaking the potentiometer (the little circular blue thing next to the two resistors; see picture above) to check the current was adjusting as expected, I decided it was time to get the parts moved onto a PCB. For the PCB build, I used one of the new pots I'd bought, without the blue plastic housing.
I then plugged my test build into this and set the pot to around 175mA, which I believe is safe for the Rohm RLD65PZB5 red laser diode I was going to use.
Here you can see the PCB version compared next to the breadboard version.
Next, I decided I'd had enough soldering practise and went for one of my sparkly new red LD's and mounted it in a module housing.
Next, I laid all the separate parts out in my project box to get an idea of how best to fit it all in.
Once happy, I went ahead and strapped the module in place with a cable-tie, mounted the driver in position, positioned the 9V battery, and drilled the necessary holes in the project box upper section to accommodate the switch and module exit, using my trusty Dremel.
Notice the blue negative connection to the module has a piece of grey heat-shrink around the already insulated wire? That's what happens if you solder wires together too slowly with the heat-shrink too close to the solder point . No biggie though as every other joint was insulated properly.
Here's the finished laser. The piece of gold coloured plastic underneath the switch is to cover up a botched hole that I'd drilled too close to the corner of the project box.
Finally... The moment of truth... IT WORKS!!!!!!
To say I had a grin from ear to ear for the rest of that day is a bit of an understatement
Well there it is.
My first laser, built from scratch, for a total cost of around £12/$19, but priceless in terms of the knowledge and skills gained.
Now, I'll have a go at tweaking it with maybe a new lens as the current one seems to splash a lot, and reflect a fair bit as there's a sort of halo effect when you shine the beam at close surfaces.
hehe, now I get to learn about optics and stuff. Brilliant hobby
So, for anyone teetering on the edge of whether or not to have a go, I'd say don't hesitate. It's not difficult even with absolutely no experience, cheap, and highly rewarding.
Thanks for reading.
This thread briefly details my first experience of building anything electronic. My background is mechanical engineering, and I've always stayed clear of the voodoo witchcraft also known as electronics, or more accurately, circuits.
Bear in mind I hadn't so much as soldered a thing until I got around to this, my point being that I strongly recommend to anyone who might have been put off by the apparent difficulty of electronics to just have a go.
There's a lot of jargon, and a few basic principles you need to get to grips with, but the amount of info available in general, not to mention what's already available on this forum is a lot more than you need to make a productive start.
As well as googling a lot, and browsing this forum, I also used a book called "Starting Electronics" by Keith Brindley, which is excellent and takes you step by step, providing exercises at the end of each chapter to test yourself.
Huge thanks also to those members that helped point out errors, and clear up confusion when I got stuck now and then. Sometimes you really can't see the forest for the trees, and an experienced perspective can quickly set you straight. Just make sure you have a proper go at sorting it yourself first
Right then, on with the build.
I used a "DDL" driver design created by a guy called "Daedal", I believe, as it crops up often and seems well recommended. To be honest, it has only a few parts, and looked easy enough to start with.
The next step was to buy the parts, and I found a couple of great UK companies. For general electronic parts I used bitsbox.co.uk that I can't recommend highly enough. The parts are amazing value, almost a tenth of the cost compared to Maplin (the UK equivalent to RadioShack), and the service was faultless.
For the actual laser parts like the laser diodes, modules, and some great value heat-shrink tubing, I used a company called odicforce.com. Again, for a good range of components, and great prices, I was really impressed. Could easily have overspent by a lot here, but I managed to restrain myself to only what I really needed.
Once the bits arrived I put them together as per the schematic above, in a breadboard. Just be careful to plug the power in correctly, as I think I initially shorted mine as nothing happened when trying to measure the current/voltage and the battery got seriously hot, quickly. I realised I'd plugged both leads into the same line on the breadboard. It's certainly one way of figuring out the layout, but probably not the best. I'd recommend reading the instructions first.
This picture is a later one taken after testing the driver properly (as detailed further below), and includes my first red laser module I'd built using a cheap Aixiz module housing, and a harvested red LD from a scrapped DVD burner.
I can tell you, trying to solder diode pins as your first ever exercise in soldering is a bit masochistic. I'd recommend trying something a bit less demanding. I managed to kill a smaller LD I found in the same scrapped DVD drive by completely smothering the pins in solder.
Next, it was time to build a test load to check the driver and set the current. I used these schematics to build it.
This one shows how to plug it into your circuit.
This is my actual test load built onto a PCB.
You might notice the copper power lines underneath each diode linked in a line have been ground/scratched away to break the connection. This is because I soldered the diodes incorrectly.
I was supposed to solder them across the copper lines, bridging two separate lines instead of along the same one. After some help from some members kind enough not to kick off at my ridiculous blunder, I broke the connections between each linearly positioned diode connection, as recommended. Saving me the effort of having to take it apart and trying again. Thanks again guys
Next, I plugged my now working test load into my breadboarded DDL driver.
It only bloody worked!!
Well, after tweaking the potentiometer (the little circular blue thing next to the two resistors; see picture above) to check the current was adjusting as expected, I decided it was time to get the parts moved onto a PCB. For the PCB build, I used one of the new pots I'd bought, without the blue plastic housing.
I then plugged my test build into this and set the pot to around 175mA, which I believe is safe for the Rohm RLD65PZB5 red laser diode I was going to use.
Here you can see the PCB version compared next to the breadboard version.
Next, I decided I'd had enough soldering practise and went for one of my sparkly new red LD's and mounted it in a module housing.
Next, I laid all the separate parts out in my project box to get an idea of how best to fit it all in.
Once happy, I went ahead and strapped the module in place with a cable-tie, mounted the driver in position, positioned the 9V battery, and drilled the necessary holes in the project box upper section to accommodate the switch and module exit, using my trusty Dremel.
Notice the blue negative connection to the module has a piece of grey heat-shrink around the already insulated wire? That's what happens if you solder wires together too slowly with the heat-shrink too close to the solder point
. No biggie though as every other joint was insulated properly.
Here's the finished laser. The piece of gold coloured plastic underneath the switch is to cover up a botched hole that I'd drilled too close to the corner of the project box.
Finally... The moment of truth... IT WORKS!!!!!!
To say I had a grin from ear to ear for the rest of that day is a bit of an understatement
Well there it is.
My first laser, built from scratch, for a total cost of around £12/$19, but priceless in terms of the knowledge and skills gained.
Now, I'll have a go at tweaking it with maybe a new lens as the current one seems to splash a lot, and reflect a fair bit as there's a sort of halo effect when you shine the beam at close surfaces.
hehe, now I get to learn about optics and stuff. Brilliant hobby
So, for anyone teetering on the edge of whether or not to have a go, I'd say don't hesitate. It's not difficult even with absolutely no experience, cheap, and highly rewarding.
Thanks for reading.
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