What can you do with a broken DVD burner

While looking on my daily RSS feeds I saw a very cool, but a little dangerous project … you can build a high-powered laser that can melt the plastic in few seconds. I already posted on a local auction site for buying a broken DVD-RW (it shouldn’t cost more than 3-4$ :P ).
After this I will try it on my own and post another entry with detailed photos.


The how-to link is here.


Few LASER diodes
schem1.jpg
The schematic
l2.JPG
A snapshot of the case+electronics

4 Comments

  1. student says:

    nice find.
    but
    1.the diode looks like it got 3 pins where as in schematic it shown only 2.(well i never used them before)
    2.what is the purpose of 3 position switch?
    can u pls clarify these

  2. Hi,
    Good to see that there are other people besides myself interested in this project :D .
    Here are your answers :P
    1)indeed the laser diode has 3 pins(GND,LD,Photodiode or N/A) but on the schematic it have only 2 pins (GND(cathode) and LD(anode,where you wire +)).
    You can read more about this from : http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/laserdio.htm
    —-
    2)the 3 position switch description … position A … the pushbutton is bypassed so the circuit is always ON.
    position B … the circuit pass through the pushbutton so the circuit is ON only when you push the pushbutton
    position C … circuit is OFF all the time because the + supply is unconnected to the circuit.
    Hope this helps
    Sorin

  3. laserdiodes are power hungry devices, but they are cool to watch’-*

  4. royan quadros says:

    HI

    wher I come from I get dead DVD writers for 0.50 dollars. ( i am in india). 1 of teh problems however has been that I always ended up getting line lasers…. I think I will make a 3D scanner instead

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