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.
