Increasing output of a laser pen?

[Andy1845c]

Found this video-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7zh07Cr_WU

Not sure if its a hoax. What does he heat with the soldering iron? The picture is too crappy to really see. Aren't lasers like LEDs in the sense that more current will increase output to a point, then they die from the heat? If it did work, wouldn't is greatly reduce the life of the pen?

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Looks like a load of rubbish! - laser diodes operate in a VERY small range, just short of destruction, a little too low and they don't work, a little too high and it dies prematurely. The very brief heating with the soldering iron wouldn't damage any components, and the 'screw' he 'tightened up' looked like a small preset potentiometer - presumably the one for setting the laser power?. So he may have increased the power by a small amount, but at the cost of greatly reduced life - and certainly no where near the claimed result!.

 

[mramos1]

First of, the guy lit a match on his floor. Would you depend on him for information?

I have heard you can take some DVD units and remove the laser as well and bost them to etch plastic. Like your new laptop (rather set the floor on fire)

It might be real, if you can find that exact pointer. It will probably not last long after the mod as well. On the other hand, maybe I have found a use for the old HP 7475 plotter I have

 

[HarveyH42]

Check put WickedLasers.com, theirs claim to light matches, pop balloons, and etch plastic (dark colored). Very expensive, $300 and up. For a regular laser pointer no F'ing way, even if you overdrive it just to the point of destruction.

 

[Sceadwian]

Nigel's right the pen probably will only last a short period of time with the increased power, and it was the screw that did it. the soldering iron was jsut for show and it probably only worked on that specific model of laser pen. It may very well have lit the match on fire but not in that short a period of time

 

[Andy1845c]

Yeah, I had a feeling it was a hoax. Not that I really care. Why do I need a laser to pop ballons? I wonder how many people have wrecked their pointers trying this though? I don't know if any of you noticed, but look at where he is holding the solder iron. If I hold mine there I get burned.

 

[Hero999]

Why do I need a laser to pop ballons?

Sounds like a kid's party game to me, excep I wouldn't mix childeren with lasers.

 

[Oznog]

Nigel, you're doing it again. I know you're knowledgeable in many areas, but you're throwing out assumptions without any specific knowledge in this field and talking like it's fact or at least obvious common sense. It's inappropriate, I mean it's like saying those MOSFET people couldn't possibly get by without any base current and you know this because you've got 40 yrs of experience with bipolar transistors.

It's not a hoax, people mod these things ALL the time.
Now red laser pointers are universally too crappy to increase the power.

GREEN lasers are typically mfg'ed capable of fairly strong power. There is apparently no cost advantage to building one smaller. Law in the USA limits them to 5mW so they use an adjuster to get 5mW. Most of these pointers can be boosted simply by readjusting them. This can get several times the official "rated" power, like 5mW-> 10mW-20mW. SOME will not last like this. Most will.

The burners are typically specially mfg'ed devices, not a simple modified laser pointer. These have become frighteningly cheap to mfg. I assume that the stories of pilots getting blinded by laser pointers were actually from these biggies or at least a boosted green pointer.

As you saw, WickedLasers.com sells major burners, they're a quality company but hardly the only one.

THESE guys know all about burners and laser hacking:
https://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=53
Very, very knowledgeable people. They can pretty much tell you what will burn out prematurely and what won't. They also know which vendors have good deals on quality high-powered lasers. They frequently buy bargain green lasers from eBay and report back on what quality they got from which seller.

 

[Oznog]

I have heard you can take some DVD units and remove the laser as well and bost them to etch plastic. Like your new laptop (rather set the floor on fire)

The stuff you can do with blue-ray DVD burner lasers is pretty impressive. Unfortuantely, there are no blue-ray burner laser heads on surplus market yet and a burner is QUITE expensive. Still, a few people have actually shelled out major bucks for a blue-ray DVD burner for no other reason that to cut it up for the laser!

Give it a year or two for the blue ray burners to come down in price and/or surplus heads make it on the market.

 

[Sceadwian]

A company created something called LiteScribe which was the same basic idea, much cheaper than caniblizaing a DVD player though. It wrote on Cd's with a special temperature sensative layer on the non-write side which allowed direct printing of labels without ink very high quality. Something like that would be much easier to modify to to re-write to each point a few times to increase temerature (at CD speeds it's basically PWM'd) to etch plastic.

 

[Marks256]

How much power is required from a laser to etch plastic? Poor question, yes, just want a ball park estimate

 

[Sceadwian]

You have to calculate the power applied over time per unit volume, the power dissipated by the plastic itself over time per unit volume, and the ambient and surrounding thermal environment. Actual 'etching' takes very high power levels, to get a discernible change in the material might take less, but it's completely material dependent, as well as the frequency of the laser.

 

[Marks256]

Maybe i will just stick with a mill...

 

[things]

i have looked at other places on the net and i think sometimes you have to bypass that little component for the mod to work, not sure though