First laser diode death due to usage

[tocket]

I feel I've passed an important milestone in my voyage through the world of lasers today as one of the red laser diodes in my projector died. It was an "open can" diode from a Pioner DVR-112 DVD burner that I've been running at 365 mA for roughly 200 hours that finally decided to throw in the towel.

It most certainly isn't the first diode I've killed, but it's the first that wasn't killed by a stupid mistake (I have a box full of those ).

Unlike the accidental killings I'm not in the least upset about it, although the timing could have been better as I have the Nobel party coming up in less than a week. Luckily I have spare diodes lying around and they're quite cheap.

RIP Open can diode #4

[dar303]

Congratulations! Good luck on the Nobel party!

[keeperx]

OOOO i cant wait till i reach this step... i have a box full of stupid as well..

200 hours at 365mA (thats like 280mw?) thats pretty good

[absolom7691]

My condolences. It had a good life.

[thesk8nmidget]

thats to bad but at the same time thats awesome! good to see it had a pretty good life to price ratio!

[tocket]

They are quite affordable indeed. Say 20€ for a burner and 200 h lifetime, that's a mere 10 c/h... I can live with that. It's just that you don't want them to die in the middle of a show (or just before)!

OOOO i cant wait till i reach this step... i have a box full of stupid as well..

200 hours at 365mA (thats like 280mw?) thats pretty good

Haha, box of stupid... yes, I hope I never have to put a 450 or 635 nm diode in there.

According to drlava's charts 365 mA gives a bit less than 250 mW, but I don't have a meter myself, so I have no idea what the actual output was.

My condolences. It had a good life.

Certainly more exciting than its buddies that never get to see the outside of a DVD burner. This one not only got to see the world and go to some great parties, but also dazzled thousands of people with its pretty red light.

Oh, I should mention that the diode had no cooling whatsoever. Need TEC controllers...