445nm Cooling - TEC or not?

[MadEye]

Hello everyone, I´m new in this Forum, was reading for some time and now I have a question and need your help. English isn´t my mother language so please excuse any bigger mistakes and don´t punish me ;P.

At first, yes i have safety glasses (OD4-5) and experience with high powerd handheld lasers up to 200mW. Now i want to build a 445nm Lab Laser and am just wondering how to cool the Diode without overdoing it.

The diode is powered with 850mA to get about 1W with the 405-G1 Lens. I have a heatsink 4*4*4cm with a small 4cm fan. Now I have the Option for adding a TEC Cooling with a huge heat sink which drains about 4A at 12V. But when I see you here using this diode with much higher Power in handheld lasers I´m wondering if the TEC Cooling is really necessary? I mean TEC sure is great, but it needs so much current and space, so I really want to use it only if absolutely necessary. My Target is a lab laser I can run for longer times without worrying the diode could die a crucial heat death, even though I´m not planing using it for really long times.

So lets say what u think about it and help me making my decision. It would be really annoying to use such a big cooling system without really needing it.

-MadEye

 

[Cyparagon]

A TEC isn't necessary. A fan is probably good enough to run it with no duty cycle.

IF one were to use a TEC, it would be to keep the diode from over-heating, not to freeze the piss out of it (otherwise you get condensation problems). This means you would want to run much less than 4A.

 

[joeyss]

A large and massive heatsink should take care of your worries along with 2 small fans side by side facing it with a 45 degree angle on each side.

 

[Wolfman29]

^ I like the fact that you know that massive means has lots of mass and not just "huge, dawg!"

 

[abyz]

What is the full square of heatsink?

 

[qumefox]

Depending on the form factor you want, a radial CPU heatsink would probably be the easiest thing in most regards. I think the one I did was a cheap one for socket 775.

 

[Wolfman29]

Where does everyone find these radial CPU heatsinks?! Any computers I disassemble always have square CPU heatsinks.

 

[qumefox]

Simple. I don't rely on junking out computers to find them, I bought them new. heh. They were only like $6 but I think they're getting hard to find now. I have about a dozen in a box somewhere that I planned to modify and sell but Haven't had a chance to get around to it yet.

There is a copper radial P3 heatsink that's actually much more optimal size wise, but they're even harder to find. I only found one surplus seller with them and he was asking /way/ too much.. (I think it was like $40/each or something stupid like that)

 

[Wolfman29]

Oh. I see!

 

[MadEye]

Hey! Thanks for all your answers, you helped me a lot.

I finaly made a testrun of the 1W Laser using just my small heatsink with fan and after 5 minutes it wasnt even warm. I´m planing to mount everything on a bigger plate of aluminium to get more cooling and a better stand, think this should work well. Next step is anodizing all this aluminium parts black...

-MadEye

 

[weeba2kv]

Well we all hope to see some photos soon of your work , becarefull with static electricity and good luck