Recent content by Icetigris

My advisor just ordered a 50mW green astronomy laser off Amazon for an experiment we're conducting as a part of my thesis research in computer graphics. The thing is that the experiment is going to be conducted inside and I think this might be too powerful, since we're doing tests on reflectance...

I'll be wearing my still-in-progress BLU Sniper costume from Team Fortress 2. I built my first laser for the rifle prop I'm still working on. Until then, Jarate will have to do.

GREAT SUCCESS

So I soldered wires onto my diode today. I built the circuit on a breadboard too. I haven't tested it with the diode yet, but I went to the EE lab and tested the driver itself and it looks like it works. I made sure to short the capacitor before anything else. I'll see if I can test the whole...

I ended up being able to cut the PCB remnants off with an x-acto knife, though the old solder is still there. Does it need to be desoldered? If so, since I have some experience using copper braid to desolder, I'll go pick some up if I need to. Now that I'm almost done with the non-circuits part...

Should I be worried about frying the diode when desoldering, since I can't get any clips onto the pins? What do you guys use to desolder?

So I finally got to getting the diode out of the heatsink. It was horrible, as warned. I ended up cutting into the top part a little more than I had wanted to, but the can seems okay. One thing I'm a little worried about is I was trying to push the diode in the aixiz housing (not all the way...

Great. So how small of a triangular file do you use to cut through it?

Alright, well I finally got to harvesting! I don't have the tools I need at school to free the diode from the little heatsink, but I'm going home for spring break tomorrow, so I may be able to locate a metal file or at least go get one. Daguin, you were right about this heatsink being a pain in...

I hate to bump my thread, but before I crack open this sled, does anyone have a step-by-step picture or perhaps video tutorial of harvesting the DT0811 diode from start to finish, including the heatsink step? I'm really paranoid about breaking this thing.

Well, since I already bought the circuit components and the Aixiz housing, it isn't really worth it to get one of these. Though looking at the gun sights, I now know that the little grey thing on the scope is the laser switch. Good to know!

Good to know. I probably won't have mine on for longer than 5 minutes, just for pictures and stuff. I don't think the machine shop thing was happening anyway. Well, I already have the DT0811 diode and I'm getting close to budget on this prop. I still have to buy supplies for the rest of the...

So about the heatsinking, I've heard that people have made them out of aluminum washers. Is that a viable option if I can't get something worked out with my university's machine shop? I'm thinking if I can get a job queued up for the machine shop, I'll make a heatsink that looks like the case of...

I just got the driver parts I needed for under $7, so I'm going to try to build my own. I got the DT0811 sled and I see where the diode is, but is there a tutorial on DT0811 diode extraction? I just don't want to break it. Also, do I need to heatsink this or is the housing enough?

It's just for show, since this is just a prop. I'll be walking around a convention with it and using it in photoshoots, so I don't want it to be too high powered. If I had been doing RED Sniper, I would have just bought a cheap red keychain laser pointer, but I tend to make life difficult for...