Turn a Maglight into a Laser

[freeze12]

Thought some of You might like this: Take a MiniMag & turn it into a Laser!

http://www.metacafe.com/w/756433/

 

[electromage]

Hm, I just watched that with no audio (I'm at work) and I'm confused. It looked like he took the laser diode out of a laser pointer, cut a leg off, and jammed it in to a minimag. What was the CD drive for? And I thought that laser diodes required some sort of electronics to regulate them.

I'd be more than willing to destroy a laser pointer and/or CD drive, but for some reason I don't get it.

 

[AJ_Dual]

Hm, I just watched that with no audio (I'm at work) and I'm confused. It looked like he took the laser diode out of a laser pointer, cut a leg off, and jammed it in to a minimag. What was the CD drive for? And I thought that laser diodes required some sort of electronics to regulate them.

I'd be more than willing to destroy a laser pointer and/or CD drive, but for some reason I don't get it.

The 16x DVD burner was the source for the diode. He put it in a 5mW Aixiz module so it had focusing optics.

And yes, he stuck the diode, direct-drive, onto two AA batteries in that MiniMag body. And yes, without a current limited driver circuit you'll toast the diode quickly, if not instantly. He could have stuck it into a cheap regulated LED flashlight like a MXDL or a Dorcy and had it work much better, but he didn't bother to tell a couple million of his closest friends that.

Mainly the guy is just interested in making a few bucks from Metacafe with his infomercial announcer's voice, and his "tech tricks".

IMO he got away with it because he was probably using cheap half-used old cells that originally were in that MiniMag with the incan bulb sucking them down, and that's why the diode didn't fry.

This MiniMag video is all over the net, is brought up here at CPF every few days, and is discussed in depth over at Laser Pointer Forums as well. (where there are group buys for brand-new unmounted DVD burner diodes btw…)

I've said it before, I'm sort of glad he did his build direct drive. I'm not sure I want a million kids that couldn't be bothered to do the research to do this right running around with +/- 200mW hand-held lasers that were functional.

I'm currently in the process of building mine with an LPF group-buy diode on a Dorcy 1 Watt mini body. I should get around 150mW out of it.

 

[electromage]

Thanks for the clarification, I'll skip the laser mods for now. I don't have many lasers, just a few <5mW red and greens. I'm looking at an Infiniti 75mW from techlasers.com as my first >5mW laser.