Hi everyone!
I am a complete noob on the area but I am very interested in lasers and after having read about and watched several DIY projects with laser pointers I now intend to do one myself. Now, I got thinking how I would get all the stuff I need. You see, I live in Sweden and there ain't many retailers of laser modules etc. Now, several years ago I picked apart a laser printer and I have saved the laser unit since then. Is there any possibility that I can extract the laser diode from this unit and use it? I have no idea what kind of laser is in this unit but I would like to find out. I would love to hear your opinion.
I cannot link images since I don't have 10 posts yet
THanx for the quick reply. I am reading alot right now and it is very interesting. I have no idea how I will be able to get any of these parts here in sweden. I guess it is possible to find them but everything is so expensive here. At first I hoped to be able to use the laser from the laser printer since it already was mounted in a heatsink and connected to a driver. But how can I know how much voltage it needs?
I'll take a look and see if I can find any parts here similar to those described in several DIY tutorials for making drivers. THe thing is, everything has different names here and there. I have searched for the components in Daedals tutorial but I haven't found anything so far...
Once you get the hang of this forum.. you can go to the Buy/Sell/Trade section
where members offer laser items and parts for sale. If you find something..
just ask the seller if they will ship to Sweden.
You're diode is most probably a lower powered IR one.Not of much use unless you plan on using it as a Nightvision gun sight or something. :-/ As for getting parts, you just have to make a paypal account and link a credit card or bank account to it and start ordering stuff. The parts to build a driver you can probably find in your local electronics shop,or harvested out of numerous equipment stuffs, including your dead printer if you still have it, they're pretty common. Don't worry about the different names , the values will be the same.You'll just have to handle the names of common components like resistors, capacitors, potentiometers, diodes, transistors , etc.
Thanx for all the replies! Everyone are so kind here
Yep it seems to be IR. I have made some experiments with it ;D and though my camera I saw something violet which I guess is IR.
I really didn't plan on spending too much on this but right now I am so caught by this so I am probably gonna order ten pieces of everything Then I will hopefully be able to make like 2-5 successful ones and I'll keep one and sell the rest to other geeks here in Sweden ;D
Haha ;D
Well I could check and see if I can see the beam with the nightvision in my dads DV camera.
I know I need to read more about optics but isn't there a way with prisms and crystals and stuff so that you can change wavelength of light? Isn't that how they make green lasers?
Haha ;D
Well I could check and see if I can see the beam with the nightvision in my dads DV camera.
I know I need to read more about optics but isn't there a way with prisms and crystals and stuff so that you can change wavelength of light? Isn't that how they make green lasers?
Yes there is, but don't think prisms and mirrors and only a series of refractions.More complex phenomena take place.And no you can definetly not have a huge series of crystals to look through and see IR as green with the image conserving. :
The parts to build a driver you can probably find in your local electronics shop,or harvested out of numerous equipment stuffs, including your dead printer if you still have it, they're pretty common. 
Don't worry about the different names , the values will be the same.You'll just have to handle the names of common components like resistors, capacitors, potentiometers, diodes, transistors , etc.
