Can I use the pickup from a CD player or CDROM drive for optical experiments?
With the nice precision optics, electromechanical actuators, laser diode, and photodiode array present in the mass produced pickup of a CD player, CDROM drive, or other optical disc/k drive, one would think that alternative uses could be found for this assembly after it has served for many years performing its intended functions – or perhaps, much earlier, depending on your relative priorities :-). People sometimes ask about using the focused laser beam for for scanning or interferometry. This requires among other things convincing the logic in the CD player or CDROM drive to turn the laser on and leave it on despite the possible inability to focus, track, or read data. The alternative is to remove the optical pickup entirely and drive it externally. If you keep the pickup installed in the CD player (or other equipment), what you want to do isn’t going to be easy since the microcontroller will probably abort operation and turn off the laser based on a failure of the focus as well as in
