Looking to build a blue laser.

[GrimCreaper]

I happened to come across an old HD-DVD player and i wanted to pull the diode out of it to make a hand held laser with. The player is a Toshiba HD-A3 and according to some info i found it is capable of putting out up to 120mW. i figured i would try to make something a bit more reasonable on the order of maybe a 50 or 75mW laser.

My questions are (1) how difficult would it be to build a laser by hand? (2) Are there any decent guides people know of to build one?

I stumbled onto a forum where a particular post was always being referenced as the "End-all be-all guide for noobs and advanced laser builders" but the guide was pulled down by the author stating it was old/outdated and he no longer wanted to keep it up to date. I havnt been able to find a strong guide aside from that or people listing off a set of electrical schematics "Do the circuit like this" kinda thing with no other information.

On those same forums i found a guy selling kits, but they were extremely expensive, upwards of 175$ for the all the parts, and if im going to spend that much money i may as well fork out 25$ more for the Arctic series from Wicked Lasers which would be more than 10X as strong as id want anyway so id rather not go there.

Thanks for reading!

 

[AnAppleSnail]

Broadly speaking, it wants power and heatsinking. If you can find its specs online, or measure them from the DVD player's power supply, you're golden. It probably wants something like 5 VDC, but that's WAG precision.

Edit; And a collimating lens!

Make took me here.

 

[GrimCreaper]

Thanks for the info the post didnt say anything about input that i found on it, i was going to ask the guy who took it apart if he could give me the specs when i got a chance.

for now, im just more interested in finding a general tutorial on building one correctly, not Kip-Kays direct drive method.

 

[AnAppleSnail]

Thanks for the info the post didnt say anything about input that i found on it, i was going to ask the guy who took it apart if he could give me the specs when i got a chance.

for now, im just more interested in finding a general tutorial on building one correctly, not Kip-Kays direct drive method.

If you can find the current draw for it, I bet you can get away with a flashlight-style CC driver. If not, there's always the crummy option to power it up weakly and see what happens. Without optics of some kind, you'll probably notice that it's meant to read a disk millimeters away from the current lens. Heatsinking will depend on the module - it shouldn't take much, but semiconductors that take more than a few hundred milliwatts aren't hurt by heatsinks.

 

[GrimCreaper]

The only think mentioned about input was that it peaks around 100mA, in the 100-120mA range it outputs a 1:1 ratio of mA in to mW out. beyond that, the CC driver is what ive seen people recommend, especielly for blue lasers. but thats as much as i saw. i believe another post listed 3-5 volts or 3-9, ill have to find it again.

 

[AnAppleSnail]

The only think mentioned about input was that it peaks around 100mA, in the 100-120mA range it outputs a 1:1 ratio of mA in to mW out. beyond that, the CC driver is what ive seen people recommend, especielly for blue lasers. but thats as much as i saw. i believe another post listed 3-5 volts or 3-9, ill have to find it again.

The beauty of a CC driver is that, as long as the driver can output that voltage, it doesn't matter what the voltage is. You could do the CC with an LM317, and as long as you have enough voltage for supply and the voltage drop, it'll work.

Wire it like this:

LM317 CC

Note that the resistor is on Vout, and Vadj actually powers the LED.
1.25v/R=I
1.25v/R=.1 Amps
1/R=.08
R=12.5 ohms

That resistor will be rated:
V=IR
1.25v = I*12.5 ohms
0.1 amps = I

Feed the LM317 at (Vlaser + 3v) and you're off.

 

[GrimCreaper]

Thank you for the info! Its a bit above my head, but ill talk to my neighbor as soon as i get a chance (hes an electrical engineer and builds small gadgets all the time). In the mean time, ill do a little more research and see if this is something i can easily do myself.

 

[beam24]

are u looking to buy a laser ?

i can make a nice one for 75 shipped ?

 

[GrimCreaper]

Buying one would be nice, i have to admit. but my main concern is that im working with a serious budget here. I have the Diode already. It hasnt been taken out of the player yet because im using it as a temporary dvd player until i can get it made into a laser. What would you charge if i were to send you the sled from the player?

 

[beam24]

well i have all the parts to make it and all put together

email me ur budget and ill see what i can do