The Little Diode That Could

[CurtisOliver]

87,625 hours! We made it 10 years! I'm not sure what I expected when I started this, but I never thought I'd be writing this post.

Ten years, so much has happened in that time. Even though most of my laser projects were placed on hold, this gave me a reason to come in here and check up on things. I still have most of my projects in various states of completion and hope that with the new house I'll have a safe place to start putting them together.

Thanks to everyone who has encouraged me to stick with this crazy pointless project.

Just a note. We are moving this week and I purchased a new massive UPS that should power this little guy for months. I'll be hooking it all up before moving so there will be a short few seconds that it will be out while switching it over.

That’s crazy. 10 full years is a long time. I wonder if it can survive 100,000 hours?

 

[Antharak]

87,625 hours! We made it 10 years! I'm not sure what I expected when I started this, but I never thought I'd be writing this post.

Ten years, so much has happened in that time. Even though most of my laser projects were placed on hold, this gave me a reason to come in here and check up on things. I still have most of my projects in various states of completion and hope that with the new house I'll have a safe place to start putting them together.

Thanks to everyone who has encouraged me to stick with this crazy pointless project.

Just a note. We are moving this week and I purchased a new massive UPS that should power this little guy for months. I'll be hooking it all up before moving so there will be a short few seconds that it will be out while switching it over.

Outstanding! 10 years, I'd forgotten all about it.

 

[Javalin]

Can you calculate how much power it has consumed during these past 10 years? That's crazy though. 10 years of continuous use!

It's just a simple current limiting resistor. 100Ω so assuming a 2.2V Vf on the diode and rounding to 25mA... that's 0.115W. Multiplied by the 87,625 hours that's 10KWhrs.

 

[BowtieGuy]

Wow,10yrs. That little diode has outlasted most of the members that were here when this project began.
Hoping for 10 more!

 

[paul1598419]

Wow,10yrs. That little diode has outlasted most of the members that were here when this project began.
Hoping for 10 more!

Me too.

 

[Javalin]

This is what I would consider a major update.

This morning I woke up and at some point in the night the laser had gone out.

Unwilling to accept the death of what both my wife and I consider to be our 3rd wheel at this point, surgery was needed.

I ripped everything apart right there on the office floor, my "nurse" fetching the instruments needed as I did.

Testing began. Wall wart, 5V output fine. Damn it, that was the easiest and most likely cause I thought.

Inspecting the casing, I noticed the resistor which should have been black, was white. Grabbing my multimeter I tested, hoping to find a resistor that had blown open. 91Ω. That wasn't it either. Fear set in.

I grabbed my lithium. At 4.7 volts I thought if this doesn't work, it must be the diode itself. With my heart racing, fingers trembling, I pinched black to negative, red to positive.

Light! Glorious 650nm light, but was it just glowing, or did we have coherent light? I aimed the case across the room. The dot danced across the wall! My shaking hands unable to keep the familiar dot still.

Diagnosis, it was the cheap USB plug. I don't know how or why, but it lost continuity.

I grabbed my silicone wire which had been set next to me, clicked on the soldering station, and began the operation. I freed the diode from the dead plug and removed the old wires which had until this point been on the laser from the factory.

I found a donor USB cable. My printer. The cable is better quality than the one that had been used 10 years ago.

Cable spliced, soldered, and taped, it was time for the last test. Time to plug it in.

The laser burst into life! Shining with a radiance far surpassing that with which it had shone just the night prior. In fact, quite possibly more brilliant than I had ever seen!

10 years on, and this is the first major failure we've seen. With the higher quality wires and USB cable, hopefully we don't have anymore issues.

 

[BowtieGuy]

Wow, close call!
Glad to see the surgery was successful and your little "diode that could" lives to see another day.
That guy could definitely be considered a senior citizen by now.