What mA for some old 4x DVD diodes?

[LtKernelPanic]

I did some searching and it appears my google-fu has failed me.

I was cleaning out the storage room today and came across some old DVD burners (all pioneers). One of them is a 16x 110D and two are 4x 106Ds. I was going to toss them but I thought I'd harvest their red diodes first. I figure they would make nice diodes for a low power red so my question is does anyone have any idea on what mA would be safe run these at assuming they work after I pull them out? From my research here for 16-20x diodes you can power them at around 250mA but for the 4x I have no idea. Any suggestions would be great.

 

[LtKernelPanic]

Well I extracted the reds from the 16x and one of the 4x. I started with my DDL test driver at 125mA to be safe and both lit up brightly. I tried the 4x at the 42 mA I had been driving my 7mw 635 until I killed it by not paying attention mad and it was very dim. Removing one of the 10 ohm resistors which gave me 65mw it was fairly bright. I'm going to try it with 15ohms (~890mA) once I dig out my 5ohm resistors. I think that may be the right current to make a nice and (relatively) safe laser that I can show people without fear of blinding them from an inadvertent reflection.

I'm still hunting for any info on those diodes and will report back if I find any.

 

[weeba2kv]

They run @ 3 volt
16x --- 210 mA 140 mW cw 240 mw pulsed
8x --- 120 mA 80-100 mw cw 180-200 mw pulsed
4x +- 80- 100 mA 50-80 mw cw 100-150 mw pulsed

 

[LtKernelPanic]

Thank you for the info! I will keep that filed away for future use.

 

[weeba2kv]

no problemo