A high power laser come from a DVD burner, actually works!

Well hello CPF! First post here for me.
I got question someone here may be able to answer for me. I just ran across an auction on ebay where someone is sellin the internals for a DVD burner claiming that you can use the burning laser diode to get a 100mw laser. If thats true can you take that diode and add on optics and a power supply to make yourself a nice high powered 650nm laser? Here is the link check it out and let me know what you think.

Re: A high power laser come from a DVD burner?

no you cant use that type of diode, its crap....

there is a reason why 100mw dvd lasers are really cheap.

Re: A high power laser come from a DVD burner?

It only takes around 30-35 mw to burn a disc. The difference with DVD burners is the wavelength, not the power. A CD burner uses a 780nm near-IR diode while a DVD burner uses a 650nm red diode. I'd pass on that deal - you'll be disappointed.

Re: A high power laser come from a DVD burner?

The power required to burn varies with recording speed and with disk chemistry. My understanding is that 16x DVD-R/RW drives do require 100 or more milliwatts.

Since DVD drives operate at 650 nm, I'm curious enough that I'm going to get one of the faster DVD-R/RW drives and set up some beam-shaping optics. It'll be a while though--I have a lot of other projects in line before it, and the price of the drives should drop with time.

Jim

Re: A high power laser come from a DVD burner?

Well thanks guys. It seems so far that the diode may not be all that bright. Turns out I had an old 8x dvd burner that no longer read discs. So I took it apart and tried using a red laser pointer driver board to operate the diode. It works but I'm not sure how well. If it is a more powerfull doide then i may need to supply it more power than the cheap driver board is supplying... I may try changing some resistors.

Re: A high power laser come from a DVD burner?

Just wait for the next Gen DVD's with blue diodes!.

Re: A high power laser come from a DVD burner?

Well i decided to skip the driver board completely.. I just wired a 3v lithium C123 battery straight onto the diode. It works great!!! I've only got one damaged collimator to work with and was only able to get the beam down to a 2in diameter dot a about 20 feet. there is also tons of scatter. But even with all that there is still a visable beam at night. I'm going to try to get another surplus drive to try it out with but so far it seems like it might be a viable alternative.

Remember to use protective glasses!

No need to make that "Do not stare into laser beam with remaining good eye" too literal.

Jim

Is THAT what those spots are??? :lolsign: Nah. I'm being carefull with this one....

wow its amazing to see you got one to work!

Yea I just wish I could get the optics to focus better. It would be a heck of a nice beam then.

Do you think with a good collimator you could get a tighter beam?
Obviously this wouldn't work as a hand held pointer without serious work, but it seems you could make a decent bench laser with some good optics and a bit of patience.

Yea I'm positive that with some better optics and a bit more patience focusing, I would be able to get a tight beam. I already have it jury rigged with electrical tape, a tube, and a button, to be handheald.

Did you connect the diode directly to the batteries?, no resistors ar anything else? How about connecting the laser diode to a green laser driverboard?, do you think it can handle around 300ma's? Of course, you'd need to take the crystal assembly out, along with some lenses and the IR filter, but then you'd end up with a bright red pointer. My thoughts

I just opened a defect Pioneer DVD burner and disassembled the whole laser assembly. The drive is one of the first DVD burners (with a fan and only burning one format). From what I can find it has 3 laser diodes, 2 feedback sensors and a whole lot of lenses and prisms. It all ends with a one way mirror up trough a blueish lens before hitting the disc.

All the lasers have 4 or more solderpoints/pins. Feedback sensors have two. The biggest laser diode assembly has 8 pins and from what I've seen from some green laser assemblys, it looks like it have a crystal attached.

It should have two laser diodes and one photo diode. One laser diode will be a relatively weak read laser, while the other will be the more powerful write laser. These laser diodes will not be equiped with an ND or KTP crystal like green lasers, but do use prisms to split the beam. The thing that looks like a crystal attached could be something being used to correct any astigmatism in the beam.

"There is a reason why 100mw dvd lasers are really cheap"
I'm stunned! How can someone knowledgeable in laser technology imply DVD RW lasers are poor quality? DVD systems require laser diodes and optics good enough to focus down to one wavelength. They also make use of SOPHISTICATED high-speed optical feedback to achieve extremely precise power regulation. If you discount the immense R&D dollars spent just on the custom fabricated laser diode, 100s of engineers are involved in the rest of the optical design. In contrast, I'd be surprised if more than a man-year of engineering is involved in any of the portable lasers being marketed today. DVDs are cheap only because their market size is so massive. I look at the little DVD module and feel nothing but awe!

That said, I wouldn't assume anything other than the laser diode in the DVD would be useful in making a laser pointer. On a whim, I purchased three salvaged 50mw DVD-RW modules off of eBay a couple of years ago and used their SONY laser diodes to turn two 3mw pointers into 50mw pointers that still work (I destroyed one diode). I broke up the rest of the modules for optical bench components - optical splitting prisms, collimating lenses, and diode astigmatism correcting lenses. It saved me a fortune. Admittedly, I was prepared and half expected that nothing would prove useful.

Well, there is a reason why the DVD lasers are so cheap, but it has little to nothing to do with quality and everything to do with economies of scale.