- Joined
- Mar 27, 2008
- Messages
- 478
- Points
- 28
It was almost 6 weeks ago that I decided to build a blu-ray pointer. I had read the forums, and knew basically what was needed. I went and ordered an MXDL AAA flashlight as well as some of those 3.6v batteries to use for some high voltage. I also ordered a heatsink from jay, and 4 aixiz modules. I also picked up three 803t drives from geek.com and sat back and waited.
Geeks shipped my order in no time. The three drives arrived a week before the DX stuff did. Jay's heatsink and the flashlight came in on the same day, and it was at this time that I realized I ordered the wrong sized Aixiz modules. I had bought the small ones instead of the large ones. Seeing as how Aixiz hadn't even shipped the modules yet, I decided to try another vendor. So I headed over to stonetek and grabbed a diffraction grating as well as the two right sized modules and glass lenses for each. About three days later, I saw the topic on how the arcylic lenses provided more power then the glass ones did. Another unnecessary purchase.
When all the parts had arrived I sat down and started to work. I was trying to save costs by building my own driver circuit, I went with the capacitor and resistor approach because I felt it wasn't necessary to need current modulation. My first attempt was sloppy. My components were just suspended in midair by their leads, and I used two resistors in parallel to try and lighten the load on each one of them (they are small resistors and got scalding hot during testing). When I was soldering wires onto the LD, I wasn't sure how much solder to put and ended up putting way too much. Solder everywhere, and both pins had solder connecting them to the base of the can. It was shorting out and I spent almost an hour getting it off. Finally done, I assembled the flashlight and tested it out. Dissapointing, to say the least. I was getting 1mW of output at best. Confused, I unscrewed the top off of the host, not realizing that the driver was suspended between the part I was taking off and the base. This resulted in my swiftly ripping the leads off of the LD.
I spent the next hour re-soldering the leads back on, and when it was finally done and looked like it just might work, I connected the LD to my variable power supply. A small tuft of smoke was released from the laser, and I realized I had left the power supply set to 12 volts, which instantly fried the little guy. After a myriad of cursing and teeth-clenching, I went to bed.
The next morning I tried again. I disassembled everything I had made the night before and pulled the LD out of the second drive. This time I was more careful. I made a much better driver, this time with the components sitting on the board that contacts the battery cartridge. I soldered everything neatly into place, made sure there were no shorts, and this time I tested the driver with a dummy load before connecting the diode. Everything looked good, so I soldered the LD to the driver and turned it on. Nothing. I desoldered the LD and tested it in the power supply. 0.5 volts across the LD sent three amps of current down the line. Another fried diode. Upon further inspection of the driver, I realized I didn't short the capacitor after testing it, and since it was directly in parallel with the LD, it hit it with 12 volts as soon as I connected it. More cursing.
Determined to get it right, I pulled the last HD-DVD drive out of my computer. This time I connected the capacitor in parallel with the batteries and soldered the resistor right to the LD. No way could I put too much current into it this time. I spent another hour carefully placing my components to prevent shorts and triple checked everything. Put it all back together and...... success! I'm now the proud owner of a blu-ray pointer.
I don't have a meter, but it's running at about 105mA and lights matches no problem.
Pictures are in this thread:
http://www.laserpointerforums.com/forums/YaBB.pl?num=1215195470/0#5
Just goes to show you, do your research and be careful with your diodes!
Geeks shipped my order in no time. The three drives arrived a week before the DX stuff did. Jay's heatsink and the flashlight came in on the same day, and it was at this time that I realized I ordered the wrong sized Aixiz modules. I had bought the small ones instead of the large ones. Seeing as how Aixiz hadn't even shipped the modules yet, I decided to try another vendor. So I headed over to stonetek and grabbed a diffraction grating as well as the two right sized modules and glass lenses for each. About three days later, I saw the topic on how the arcylic lenses provided more power then the glass ones did. Another unnecessary purchase.
When all the parts had arrived I sat down and started to work. I was trying to save costs by building my own driver circuit, I went with the capacitor and resistor approach because I felt it wasn't necessary to need current modulation. My first attempt was sloppy. My components were just suspended in midair by their leads, and I used two resistors in parallel to try and lighten the load on each one of them (they are small resistors and got scalding hot during testing). When I was soldering wires onto the LD, I wasn't sure how much solder to put and ended up putting way too much. Solder everywhere, and both pins had solder connecting them to the base of the can. It was shorting out and I spent almost an hour getting it off. Finally done, I assembled the flashlight and tested it out. Dissapointing, to say the least. I was getting 1mW of output at best. Confused, I unscrewed the top off of the host, not realizing that the driver was suspended between the part I was taking off and the base. This resulted in my swiftly ripping the leads off of the LD.
I spent the next hour re-soldering the leads back on, and when it was finally done and looked like it just might work, I connected the LD to my variable power supply. A small tuft of smoke was released from the laser, and I realized I had left the power supply set to 12 volts, which instantly fried the little guy. After a myriad of cursing and teeth-clenching, I went to bed.
The next morning I tried again. I disassembled everything I had made the night before and pulled the LD out of the second drive. This time I was more careful. I made a much better driver, this time with the components sitting on the board that contacts the battery cartridge. I soldered everything neatly into place, made sure there were no shorts, and this time I tested the driver with a dummy load before connecting the diode. Everything looked good, so I soldered the LD to the driver and turned it on. Nothing. I desoldered the LD and tested it in the power supply. 0.5 volts across the LD sent three amps of current down the line. Another fried diode. Upon further inspection of the driver, I realized I didn't short the capacitor after testing it, and since it was directly in parallel with the LD, it hit it with 12 volts as soon as I connected it. More cursing.
Determined to get it right, I pulled the last HD-DVD drive out of my computer. This time I connected the capacitor in parallel with the batteries and soldered the resistor right to the LD. No way could I put too much current into it this time. I spent another hour carefully placing my components to prevent shorts and triple checked everything. Put it all back together and...... success! I'm now the proud owner of a blu-ray pointer.
I don't have a meter, but it's running at about 105mA and lights matches no problem.
Pictures are in this thread:
http://www.laserpointerforums.com/forums/YaBB.pl?num=1215195470/0#5
Just goes to show you, do your research and be careful with your diodes!
