Jem;
Sorry to hear about your troubles.
You might want to contact Chuck directly and ask him to send the repaired module to you via Fed-Ex or UPS red-label. Yeah, it will cost you more in shipping, but you will get it in your hand a lot quicker that waiting on the mail
I haven't had any problems with my Maxyz module pair, but I don't ever get near them either. I mounted them, adjusted the PBS cube to get the best mix between the two, and since then I haven't touched them. (granted, I've had no reason to touch them...)
But yeah, direct injection diodes are fragile, and you need to be careful with them. When I was building my projector, I noticed that the 9 volt PSU I had intended to use to power the Maxyz modules actually put out around 10.5 volts, and spiked as high as 12.7 volts on start-up. So I put a pair of 100 ohm, 10 watt, sand-filled ceramic resistors in parallel with the modules.
This creates a constant current draw of around 200 ma which pulls the running voltage of the PSU down to around 10 volts with the modules off. It also smooths out that starting spike. The resistors get slightly warm to the touch, so I mounted them on the bottom of the baseplate. (The modules float on their own tables, so any heat from the resistors won't affect the temperature of the modules.)
I suppose if you want to rebuild your projector you could go with a 671 nm DPSS red... But you'll need a lot more of it. (My guess would be at *least* double the power, if not more.) Plus the head is going to be much larger. Do you have the room to fit it?
Adam