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Uses for recycled laser diodes

A

Al

My town has a recycling center. One of the designated areas is for
discarding electronics. It has been a bonanza for me and a few others. I
havn't bought a new computer in years. Why? Because so many perfectly
good computers are thrown out because they are "full." The denizens of
the town are free to take whatever they want. It help keeps the cost of
disposing of them down. I keep the best parts of them and assemble my
own and run Ubuntu on them.

At any rate, I have been taking apart obsolete hard drives, CD-ROM R/W
drives and other goodies. I take them apart for the wonderfully powerful
magnets I find inside. I've found a number of good uses for them and th
the other gizmos I find inside.

I've also disassembled a number of the laser diodes mechanisms used in
the CD-ROM drives.

Has anyone found any interesting uses for the lasers in these
mechanisims? If so, could you point me to a reference?

Al
 
E

electfire

My town has a recycling center. One of the designated areas is for
discarding electronics. It has been a bonanza for me and a few others. I
havn't bought a new computer in years. Why? Because so many perfectly
good computers are thrown out because they are "full." The denizens of
the town are free to take whatever they want. It help keeps the cost of
disposing of them down. I keep the best parts of them and assemble my
own and run Ubuntu on them.

At any rate, I have been taking apart obsolete hard drives, CD-ROM R/W
drives and other goodies. I take them apart for the wonderfully powerful
magnets I find inside. I've found a number of good uses for them and th
the other gizmos I find inside.

I've also disassembled a number of the laser diodes mechanisms used in
the CD-ROM drives.

Has anyone found any interesting uses for the lasers in these
mechanisims? If so, could you point me to a reference?

Al

Sure their are plenty of things you can use them for such as, laser
lightshows (especially if you kept the power supply) .
 
J

John Devereux

electfire said:
Sure their are plenty of things you can use them for such as, laser
lightshows (especially if you kept the power supply) .

CR-ROM lasers are infrared!
 
F

Frithiof Andreas Jensen

Has anyone found any interesting uses for the lasers in these
mechanisims? If so, could you point me to a reference?

Maybe - if you have many of them - as a pump laser for a visible green solid
state laser.
 
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