Red DIY DVD laser burner.

[jayhawker08]

Phazonx I could only find a 10 Ohm resistor and mounted that in, but it doesn't even light a match Where is everyone getting their 5 Ohm and 2.5 Ohm resistors? I can't find any shop or anything online for up here in Canada. I checked out Digikey, but they are out. Is it the 1/4 watt 5 Ohm resistor?

Kenom, are you not putting in the cap anymore? I noticed in some of you previous posts, you use 4x10 Ohms resistors and 2x10 Ohm resistors. What should I be doing?

Thanks for your help guys


Cheers

if you already have 10ohm resistors, just solder two together in parallel. that will produce 5 ohms. if you don't have enough room, then you will need to find a 5 ohm, but otherwise it is much easier.

 

[Kenom]

actually once I actually looked at the driver itself in the dorcy I noticed it already had some capacitors in there. So NO NEED!

 

[Gazoo]

You can use an open can or a closed can as long as the diode is the smaller 6.5mm

I know you meant 5.6 mm's. ;D

 

[Phazonx]

Phazonx I could only find a 10 Ohm resistor and mounted that in, but it doesn't even light a match Where is everyone getting their 5 Ohm and 2.5 Ohm resistors? I can't find any shop or anything online for up here in Canada. I checked out Digikey, but they are out. Is it the 1/4 watt 5 Ohm resistor?

Kenom, are you not putting in the cap anymore? I noticed in some of you previous posts, you use 4x10 Ohms resistors and 2x10 Ohm resistors. What should I be doing?

Thanks for your help guys


Cheers

Did you shave out some space from the back side of the lens? Use an X-acto knife and peel around the hold until you get really close to where the spring rests.


If you sratch the lens a few times, its not the end of the world. I scratched mine 3 times and it looks kinda bad, but still makes a great beam at night and still burns stuff.

 

[Hellcat]

Thanks jayhawker08, I put two 10 Ohm resistors in parallel on the negative terminal. Works well now, but only smokes black electrical tape. Doesn't light up blacked out matches though

Kenom, will 4x 10 Ohm resistors bring it to 2.5 Ohms? Can I also use 3x 10 Ohm resistors?

Phazonx, what does shaving out space on the back side of the lense do?

Also I noticed I can get a pinpoint of light, but there is a bonch of scatter around the point. Is that normal? And when shining at a great distance, I notice that the point is now a large ball of light. Is that normal too? Cuz on my 5mw Greenie, the point is still a tiny point at the same distance

Thanks again

 

[rog8811]

Phazonx, what does shaving out space on the back side of the lense do?

It will allow all the light from the laser to get to the lens, it is not unknown for the laser to melt the plastic housing of the lens if the hole isn't opened up. There is a thread somewhere describing how to do it.

I notice that the point is now a large ball of light. Is that normal too

Yes it is, you are focused realy close, at the point where the beam is smallest the photons cross and start to diverge to produce a big disk, make yourself a push on bezel for the lens holder to make it easier to adjust the focus.

Regards rog8811

 

[photongeek]

I finally got this thing working again. I do believe that strange pattern the last LD projected also killed it. The newest LD projects a very clean pattern and easily lights matches and pops balloons. I'm still at only a draw of about 210ma but that's OK for me.
I took your advice Ken and pressed the module all of the way into my solid aluminum heat sink. I think full contact can only improve performance. I also insulated the LD's leads to prevent another short.
I'll keep my fingers crossed.

 

[Kenom]

Sounds like your gonna be rockin and rolling now. You've taken all the necessary precautions and should be enjoying lots of tons of laser fun now. (hehe lots of tons) given that you've done this several times now and have learned each and every time I think this time you won't experience ANY problems at all!

 

[Phazonx]

Thanks jayhawker08, I put two 10 Ohm resistors in parallel on the negative terminal. Works well now, but only smokes black electrical tape. Doesn't light up blacked out matches though

Kenom, will 4x 10 Ohm resistors bring it to 2.5 Ohms? Can I also use 3x 10 Ohm resistors?

Phazonx, what does shaving out space on the back side of the lense do?

Also I noticed I can get a pinpoint of light, but there is a bonch of scatter around the point. Is that normal? And when shining at a great distance, I notice that the point is now a large ball of light. Is that normal too? Cuz on my 5mw Greenie, the point is still a tiny point at the same distance

Thanks again

Here is a little example of the lens thing. You said your using 2 10 ohm resistors. I'm using 1 10 ohm resistor. You said you can only smoke electrical tape. Mine will cut it pretty fast.

The lens makes a huge difference. I'm going to get ahold of another lens and do a video on how to do it.

 

[Kenom]

you can use 4 resistors to get 2.5 ohms.  3 10 ohm resistors will bring you to 3.3 ohms.  which ironically is the resistor I'm using for mine.

As far as opening up the hole on the opposite side of the lens if you have a very small set of pliers you can actually pull the entire thing off! I pull all of mine out now instead of sticking the exacto knife inside and potentially scratching the lens. Once I have it removed I can then use the exacto knife to cut it down to size or use the spring to hold the lens in place.

 

[photongeek]

Sounds like your gonna be rockin and rolling now. You've taken all the necessary precautions and should be enjoying lots of tons of laser fun now. (hehe lots of tons) given that you've done this several times now and have learned each and every time I think this time you won't experience ANY problems at all!

Is it advantageous to enlarge the aperture hole on the back of the lens mount? If so, to what diameter? Thanks!
And, I don't know if this has ever been discussed, would it be possible to build optics to make these lasers more like commercial units that do not require manual focusing?

 

[Mario_cro]

I'm new in this so sorry for the stupid questions
I have 16x dvd burner diod and a plastic lance from another laser ,so will the diod melt the lance?
Thank you!

 

[photongeek]

you can use 4 resistors to get 2.5 ohms. 3 10 ohm resistors will bring you to 3.3 ohms. which ironically is the resistor I'm using for mine.

As far as opening up the hole on the opposite side of the lens if you have a very small set of pliers you can actually pull the entire thing off! I pull all of mine out now instead of sticking the exacto knife inside and potentially scratching the lens. Once I have it removed I can then use the exacto knife to cut it down to size or use the spring to hold the lens in place.

Sorry. I must have missed this. I opened it up to almost the diameter of the spring and it's working better. Matches are lighting instantaneously. And Ken, I re-checked the current draw of this new LD and this guy is drawing 230 ma with a 4.8 Ohm resistor instead of the others at between 200-210. These things really do vary. And, the new digital multimeter is a blessing over my old analog.

 

[thewaitinggame]

I have a question that i hope to get some advise on. One idea i had is to extend the dorcy out to fit 2 cr123's and put daedal's driver in the barrel depending on the response I get from some of you. I'm a fabricator so making a longer barrel is no problem because i have all the tool and machines at work to do this with. I'm just not that familiar with all the circuits. I just bought all the components for the daedal circuit today and I found this pot at radio shack. It is a 100 k-ohm micro sized pot, 50 VDC, 0.1 W and I wanted to know if this will work in the daedal driver. If it does, this thing is tiny and wont take up as much as I expected. I posted a picture, hopefully it shows up. If it will not work I will build it like Kenom did.

 

[Gazoo]

Well there are a couple of problems. For one the pot is rated at 0.1 watt. This is not a high enough rating for these diodes. You will need a pot rated for a half a watt.

The other problem is running Daedal's driver with 2 CR123's. It's not really a good idea because they will sag quickly and the regulator will begin to drop out. A much better solution would be to use two RCR123's. And there are even better solutions around here. Blufusion is selling drivers in the GB thread. And there is the AMC7135, which happens to be my favorite option for red laser diodes since it is so efficient. I did a review on it here.

http://www.laserpointerforums.com/forums/YaBB.pl?num=1191898669

 

[thewaitinggame]

ok thanks, i will go through that thread. I will return those for the right parts tomorrow or order the blue fusion driver. So can I use the rcr123's in the cr123 dorcy? I've been reading so much on here and trying to get the best solution for my build so thanks for the help.