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$
).
After this I will try it on my own and post another entry with detailed photos.
The how-to link is here.
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Few LASER diodes |
![]() The schematic |
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A snapshot of the case+electronics |

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
Hi,
.
…
Good to see that there are other people besides myself interested in this project
Here are your answers
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
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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
laserdiodes are power hungry devices, but they are cool to watch’-*
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