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FrozenGate by Avery

Stpuid Mistakes?

Meatball

Meatball

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Stupid Mistakes?

So what are some of the stupidest mistakes you've ever made while making or using a laser, to kill a diode. I'll share mine.

It was my first laser ever. It was a LOC LPC-815 diode. I was connecting it to my DDL driver for the first time on a breadboard. I was stupid and didn't tape up the solder leads that I had on the diode wires. I plugged in the last wire and it wasn't for a second, that there was a bright red light until I accidentally touched a diode lead to the LM317 tab... and then came that dreaded dim red light. It made me sad. :(

what are your guys' worst mistakes?
 
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The first (and only) two flexdrives I ever bought, I hooked them up to dummy loads, set them to the right current, then hooked them up to a diode which had gone open-circuit... One after the other I hooked them up to that dead diode, which instantly killed the drivers.. Worst $60 I've ever spent. Shortly after I bought myself 35 LM1117 regulators, 200 capacitors, and 1000 resistors, all for something like $40, and I've been making my own drivers ever since.
 
I bet no one can top this one. I had a 17w fiber coupled diode. beautiful driver, powered by a switching supply. It was working awesomely!<-- if there is such a word. any dark plastic, cardboard, or e. tape would produce an instant flame at the focal point. tryng to collimate it with a lens, I reflected the output back into the fiber, and it ate itself.

:eek::eek::eek:
 
Oh man... that must have hurt!

I can't top that, but I got a good one for you...

I always used to clip the one pin that was not needed on red diodes...

So back in the early blu-ray burner days (before Hemlock Mike and Dr. Lava did the first 6X's), I harvested a $300 dollar 2X drive and clipped the pin that I always used to clip on red diodes! :oops:

OUCH! I don't even clip red diode pins anymore! That hurt... :cryyy:

So I learned the hard way that the pin connection is different on the blu-ray burner diodes. (this was before the PHR days too)
Jay
 
My switch on my O-like 100mW greenie broke, so I tried to fix it by pushing the module in really hard...BAM. Dead module. That was the first mistake.

The second mistake was sending it to jake21 to verify that it was dead...3 weeks now, and still no laser back...(I may get a replacement from Susie at a lower cost if I can ever get that damn laser back!)

-Mark
 
My first flexdrive I desoldered somthing tryed to solder it back on it worked for a while but the laser was pulsed then the driver s**t itself.

My secound worked still after I put the power through the diode side.

Proberly my biggest mistake with laser's was my first flexdrive... not much really but $40 bucks still hurts.
 
Those flexdrives are tough but I just suck too much -.-
 
I have many, many mistakes. Mostly finding sweet spots on early 6x 405nms...:cryyy::cryyy::cryyy:

My most memoral moment was after building some units and getting along so well I finished a 6x 200mA w/lava v4 and then took my 3 10400 batt. from another build and intalled them in my lava 6x build... well that was
a load of over 12v to the lava drive (5.3 volts max IIRC). :(:(:(

Lost both the diode and driver... I hate this thread reminds me of the
fact I'm addicted...:thanks::na:
 
I bet no one short of disma can top this: first build, everything snaps together perfectly (except for the housing, but I got around that), scores blue tape effortlessly, even survives a train ride and assembly, then at my dorm, I put in 3XAAA batteries, still working fine. "Let's top up these batts so they'll last longer..." says me. Half an hour later the urge comes again, so I take the batteries out of the charger, put them in, press the button, and nothing, then dim red. :oops:

First I thought it was the driver, so I bought another one, but it's still dim red, so it was the diode (too). :(

Worst way to spend ~$80 :(
 
jander6442 said:
I have many, many mistakes. Mostly finding sweet spots on early 6x 405nms...:cryyy::cryyy::cryyy:

My most memoral moment was after building some units and getting along so well I finished a 6x 200mA w/lava v4 and then took my 3 10400 batt. from another build and intalled them in my lava 6x build... well that was
a load of over 12v to the lava drive (5.3 volts max IIRC). :(:(:(

Lost both the diode and driver... I hate this thread reminds me of the
fact I'm addicted...:thanks::na:
Click to expand...
We're in the same boat then, only I only gave it ~6V, but with the same effect :D
 
ok i ordered a couple high fully adjustable rkcstr drivers and a few low adjustable drivers guess what phr's do not like 420 ma took me 2 before i figured it out ouch
 
I only made 4 lasers: 1 red , 2 blurays and 1 greenie.They're all still alive lol.I haven't killed anything:angel:
 
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