You never know whats inside

[Mohrenberg]

If you rub the thermal epoxy with your soldering iron it will make it easier to get it off. epoxy gets soft and rubbery when hot.

That sure is an ugly build though :/ I can't believe it worked.

 

[Lifetime17]

well Matt if i wasn't nosey as usual to look inside the host i would have never found out. I was curious to see what was driving the diode. Not everyone uses Angelos xdrives i do in all my build and the blitzbucks you sell. I removed some epoxy ill try the heat process like you said. not worried about the driver. i have about 18 or 20 drivers in stock. It was a great sale great price couldn't beat it. Ended up with a Sinner host and a 462nm diode. I'm going to post the rebuild soon.
Rich

 

[Benm]

If you have suitable drivers in stock i would not bother trying to get that epoxy shit off. It's not impossible, but your working far below minimum wage if you compare it to getting a brand new driver. Also, you could damage it and the work would be for nothing

 

[Lifetime17]

yes you are correct but i on the other hand would give it a shot. ill be testing the remains of that poor drive soon to see if its still up to snuff. I don't need it i have about 18 to 20 drivers on hand. Me i can't just take my football and go home i can't quit mentally,
Thank you for sharing in this post your awesome buddy

Rich...

 

[Benm]

Hehe okay, i must admit to spending idiotic amounts of time fixing something that could be replaced for $10 or $20 at times. Either a waste of time or a 'challenge accepted' situation

 

[Lifetime17]

It give me something else to fiddle with lol ...

 

[Jstr]

Ah well hi guys...

Not my prettiest build I admit, but hopefully I can clear a couple things up.

First I would like to say, the bent pins could not have been me, I was extremely careful to not twist the wires. I disassembled it several times before selling it. It looks like someone either forgot to loosen the set screw before disassembly, or set the module prematurely while reassembling it. The diode was also straight from DTR, who always does a great job soldering the leads on.

As for the driver, I knew when I made it was sloppy. It was meant to be temporary (which is why I didn't go the obvious route of simply epoxying the driver to the pill), but I also wanted to make sure it would function properly. Which is why I was liberal with the epoxy and tape. I didn't want the driver to short against the pill. Somebody definitely messed with that too because it was mostly covered in tape to prevent shorts.

Also this was probably the second driver I ever heatsinked, so I was definitely sloppy on the epoxy.

The wire as heatsink was not a great option, but all I had at the time. And at only 1.8A, merely a precaution for long duty cycles. If it takes 90 seconds to approach overheatink, that's plenty of time for some heat to transfer to the heatsink regardless. Enough to extend the duty cycle. Lazy? Sure, but the only place I could source an actual copper heatsink was China , and I wasn't about to wait a month for it to come just so it would look nice with practically zero difference in functionality.

Other than looks, I don't see what you can complain about quality for. X-drives are the best drives. And it still looks great when assembled

The solder connections to the positive input and host via screw were both extremely secure. I made sure of that. I was difficult and required a very high temperature, but that was how the host was clearly intended by sinner to be built, so I did it. Why else would the screws be there?

oh by the way the driver was just floating around inside the pill getting banged around

When I left it, it was securely taped to the side of the pill. All I can say is sorry. As long as it works, I hope you will forgive me.

Basically I just built this so I knew it would work, and it did. I was very thorough to make it work, and make it re-buildable. At least you don't have to scrape off the driver from the inside of the pill. I also didn't intend to sell it when I made it, but I never got around to rebuilding it.

I have another ms-ssw-III host that I will hopefully build soon and I will do a better job because it will be permanent. I'll post it for y'all. Edit: I modified the pill already to make room for a full dtr module and so it only uses one screw (pos) and doesn't use the two holes for wires which cuts out a lot of unnecessary wire length that gets messy.

Glad to see you are rebuilding it though because I never got a chance to. It is still a great laser. And that diode was on the more efficient side as I recall.

 

[Lifetime17]

Hi J,
First i didn't know who the build was from, as for the bent - and + pins i was well aware of the set screw being loosened prior to dissasembly .Anyway i have a sinner host build with one of his new beam exspander and adapter its an awesome host. Hey it is what it is it went through two hands before i bought it. So i have no idea what the unit went through assembly wise. i wouldn't worry to much about it i have a great host and a awesome diode good deal. i received my order Saturday so the new SXD with ramp up will go in instead of a reg xdrive V7. The ramp up feature is nice so the diode doesn't get wacked with all that current.
well don't loose any sleep over it ill make this build right and ill post the rebuild. I would like to see your nex tSinner build if you use a sinner host and a high power diode try the SXD with ramp up its really great driver.

Rich

 

[Jstr]

Hi J,
First i didn't know who the build was from, as for the bent - and + pins i was well aware of the set screw being loosened prior to dissasembly .Anyway i have a sinner host build with one of his new beam exspander and adapter its an awesome host. Hey it is what it is it went through two hands before i bought it. So i have no idea what the unit went through assembly wise. i wouldn't worry to much about it i have a great host and a awesome diode good deal. i received my order Saturday so the new SXD with ramp up will go in instead of a reg xdrive V7. The ramp up feature is nice so the diode doesn't get wacked with all that current.
well don't loose any sleep over it ill make this build right and ill post the rebuild. I would like to see your nex tSinner build if you use a sinner host and a high power diode try the SXD with ramp up its really great driver.

Rich

Sounds good. Actually I wanted to look into getting a beam expander, does sinner sell the expander itself or just the adapter?

I have an adjustable SXD to 5A, and it's definitely a great driver. I think all X-drives have ramp ups, but I like the high current capabilities of the SXD.

I might try a 520nm build for this one though.

Truly sorry about that.

 

[Lifetime17]

Hey you don't have to say your sorry its ok, whats done is done.
Yes Sinner sells the 10x beam exspander and the adapter that is threaded for it. Ok but it only will fit the Cypreus 3 host . But PM him it might fit other hosts also.
I tried it on your Sinner host that bought but the heat sink is a little to large in diameter.
I have a post thread on it check it out its in the 445 or optics section of LPF

Rich

Yes i just checked it is in the 445nm LPF section i changed the set screw to nylon tip there not marking the host

 

[Lifetime17]

Well Folks i finally got around to rebuild the 462nm sinner host. It took some time but came out great. Have some new shots of the build all cleaned up and happy again for the laser gods... Hope you enjoy the 462nm rebuild

 

[Jstr]

Woah, 2.45W!! Nice build, and congrats! Sweet beam shots, too.

The best reading I got was 2.3W, but my old x4 had response time.

I'll PM sinner.

 

[Lifetime17]

I was surprised my self, The batteries needed to be charged so ill take another reading soon.
Very happy with the host ,and diode Thank you very much Jstr for the comment well appreciated buddy.

Rich

 

[Lifetime17]

Yes very happy with the build great host and diode will take another reading with fresh charged cells.Thank you Jstr for the nice comment. Oh and you won't be disappointed in the Sinner host and beam expander, won't be able to put it down. Tons of fun with it...

Rich

 

[Benm]

As for the driver, I knew when I made it was sloppy. It was meant to be temporary (which is why I didn't go the obvious route of simply epoxying the driver to the pill), but I also wanted to make sure it would function properly. Which is why I was liberal with the epoxy and tape.

...

The wire as heatsink was not a great option, but all I had at the time. And at only 1.8A, merely a precaution for long duty cycles. If it takes 90 seconds to approach overheatink, that's plenty of time for some heat to transfer to the heatsink regardless. Enough to extend the duty cycle. Lazy? Sure, but the only place I could source an actual copper heatsink was China , and I wasn't about to wait a month for it to come just so it would look nice with practically zero difference in functionality.

As I stated before: depsite looking like (and probably being) a kludge, it actually worked for the product. You could have taken the trouble to hide all of this by potting the entire thing, but did not, so it came to light.

Potting it would probably have added some mechanical stability, but then again, that epoxy stuff does not come off that easily either by accident or intent.

The realistic question to ask if this laser would have performed better overall if you had installed a 'proper' heatsink onto the chip instead of that kludge, and my realistic answer to that woud be 'not significantly'. Being enclosed in a case as it convection and such are fairly mininal, you are basically only adding a bit of thermal mass to allow longer duty cycle.

What might have helped was actually potting the entire thing in thermally conductive epoxy so heat it moved from the chip directly to the body. I'm sure everyone hates potted stuff since it allows little modification afterwards, but for this unit it would have been the best choice in retrospect.

 

[Jstr]

As I stated before: depsite looking like (and probably being) a kludge, it actually worked for the product. You could have taken the trouble to hide all of this by potting the entire thing, but did not, so it came to light.

What might have helped was actually potting the entire thing in thermally conductive epoxy so heat it moved from the chip directly to the body. I'm sure everyone hates potted stuff since it allows little modification afterwards, but for this unit it would have been the best choice in retrospect.

You may have missed my point. The only reason I had to make the wire heatsink was because this was designed to be temporary (yet sturdy enough to never be a problem).

Potting it would preclude this and not to mention waste a ton of epoxy. Theres almost no scenario short of air being conductive where potting it completely would be best. As I said before, the simplest option would have been to do what lifetime has done now, and epoxy the IC to the pill. But I couldn't do that and have it be temporary.

Again, the wire was simply to add enough thermal mass to ensure that the driver did not inhibit the duty cycle. I got the idea of wire from another build review here. The only drawback is how the internals looked
, not functioned. Personally I am more of a functionality and practicality type because regardless of the internals, the laser works (and looks) the same.

I don't care that it came to light, I'm just defending myself because like we all agreed, the laser worked flawlessly. I built this over a year ago, and purely for myself. You don't see people complaining about an Altoids tin build, those are ugly inside and out!

The only downside for me is that the circlejerk this thread became gave several people the wrong impression of me.

You seem to say its bad that it "came to light." I would think it's a good thing I didn't "hide my tracks" or whatever you're saying. The op was able to build it the way he liked because it worked as I intended. Whether it was damaged in between hands is out of my control.

The message here isn't that I should have hidden my work (which again, was perfectly functional). This is a laser build, not a murder mystery. :/