Impressed By My Own Work: Unlimited Duty Cycle LPC

Hey everyone.

So even though I built this laser a while ago, I have been getting rid of a lot of my lasers lately to accommodate my Leadlight collection and just have more money in general. After thinking about deciding to sell this laser, I decided against it because it's so damn awesome.

The laser is your standard LPC-815, running at 416mA. It runs off of a single 14500, so it doesn't have much input power. However, I gave it a big fat beefy heatsink with fins and it looks DAMN good (despite the slightly large nose :wave.

Anyway, I felt like I would share this.

Here is a picture of the little beasty:



And, before I went to class this morning, I decided to see if it was REALLY unlimited duty-cycle like I intended it to be when I first built it (must have been in October or something).

Initially, my LPM reads it at 256mW. After 13 minutes of constant on-time, it was only running down to 248mW, and the metal of the heatsink was only slightly warmer than the rest of it.

If that's not an unlimited duty-cycle, I don't know what is! My guess is that the FlexDrive that's powering it would overheat before the diode does (the FlexDrive is wrapped in electrical tape to prevent shorts, but it's also insulating :\ ).

Nonetheless, I am really proud of this, and I am thinking about making it a kit. Would you guys be interested?

I think thats unlimited dutycycle )
Enjoy it !
+1 :beer:

Jim

Thanks ^_^ I wonder how long a 445 would last in that host D:

Wolfman29 said:

Thanks ^_^ I wonder how long a 445 would last in that host D:

Click to expand...

Try it that's a big heatsink I bet at least a good 3mins or more my spartan will 3mins before it gets warm to the touch and its not that big of a heatsink and its made of brass.

Yeah - it's a big heatsink, much more thermal mass than even the Hotlight heatsink

Read my thread, http://laserpointerforums.com/f65/my-1-25a-445nm-has-survived-30min-runtime-59445.html

I'm going to push this laser to its limits later > 13 minute run time my ass. Might fully charge the battery and run it till it's out.

Thats a Cool Laser. I Love the Heatsink. Can you tak a side shot of it or maybe some more picutres of the Build.

I Love Picutres.

660nm is still one of my favorite WL.

Wolfman29 said:

If that's not an unlimited duty-cycle, I don't know what is!

Click to expand...

Step 1: Turn laser on
Step 2: Go to class
Step 3: Return home
Step 4: Check the laser

Anyway, nice work!

Good work Wolfman.

Will do ^_^ Gonna take some pictures tonight. Going to post office soon, too, so I will just leave it on. Hope it really does have an unlimited Duty Cycle

So I just turned it off from a one-hour burn time. While my LPM recorded it as having dropped to ~240mW or so from a base of ~255mW, I still consider that within duty-cycle. Further, the heatsink was only slightly warm I think it worked. I will take some pictures of it opened up in a bit (it's a really easy assembly).

Alright - apology for the double post above, by the way - didn't realize I did that.

Anyway, took some moar pictures.

Here they are! (Pardon the crappy pictures - it's hard to focus a camera when your hands are as shaky as mine are, which is sad, considering I'm not even 20 yet -.- .)


So from the side:


From the nose:


Taken apart, you can see the bulk of the heatsink is really hidden


Here is the heatsink in its full glory.


Here it is all together without the front, so you can see how the heatsink compares to the rest of the laser.