Or will be tomorrow afternoon anyway.

I finally got a chance to go out this afternoon and mill a hole in one of the pile of heatsinks i've had sitting around for months.

Right now it has an empty aixiz module in it, but tomorrow after work i'll press a diode in it and take some beamshots.

Still a touch more machining to do on the heatsink though. I need to mill a channel on one side to give me room to drill and tap a hole for a setscrew but the aixiz modules fit tight enough as it is that I can use it as is until I can do some woodwork to make stabilizers for the fins so I can do the rest of the machining without them flapping and bending all over the place.

sweet-- good job

should do the job even w/o a fan..

Thanks. Probably not as good as copper core heatsinks would be, but, as cheap as these were for me to get, i'm not complaining. Aluminum will do fine.

Got duty cycle?

Heh with the fan attached and running? Probably not.

Beamshots and data. I'll make a pretty graph when I get time.

beam is ~1W in the pics. No smoke in the room.

This one is an A130 diode, with aixiz 445 lens, and I didn't have the fan wired yet when I did this run.

Vf mA mW
3.78 200 13
3.80 220 32
3.83 240 48
3.85 260 61
3.87 280 82
3.90 300 108
3.92 320 138
3.94 340 162
3.96 360 184
3.98 380 214
4.00 400 234
4.00 420 257
4.02 440 278
4.07 460 307
4.08 480 327
4.10 500 355
4.11 520 374
4.12 540 395
4.13 560 421
4.14 580 447
4.15 600 459
4.18 620 488
4.19 640 517
4.19 660 536
4.20 680 559
4.21 700 580
4.22 720 599
4.23 740 616
4.24 760 645
4.24 780 659
4.25 800 682
4.26 820 696
4.27 840 717
4.27 860 735
4.28 880 753
4.29 900 776
4.29 920 791
4.29 940 813
4.30 960 829
4.31 980 844
4.31 1000 864
4.31 1020 878
4.32 1040 892
4.33 1060 905
4.33 1080 928
4.33 1100 940
4.34 1120 954
4.35 1140 969
4.35 1160 987
4.36 1180 1003
4.36 1200 1018

Nice. The computer heatsink with fan is kind of "why didn't I think of that". With active cooling like that, it'll probably run for a while

Getting a power output measurement curve over say 10 minutes would be interesting too, we saw Kenom's cooling tests with these diodes, and I know the Arctics tend to peak and drop.. I wonder if this setup will get a nice flat peak output.

+1 and, can you build me one? :P

Guess I can do a long run tomorrow and test stability tomorrow. I know running with the fan on at 1W, the knurled adjusting ring doesn't even get warm.

As it stands though, the fan interferes with the thermopile. So i'd either have to remount the fan or make a baffle to shield the LPM sensor from the airflow. Right now it blows air forward, as to not suck dirt etc towards the lens.

Blow the air forward and put a smoke machine behind it, light saber effect out to some point where the smoke dissipates...lol

hay where did you get that heatsink

Was the cheapest radial heatsink I could find.. Just happened to be for a socket 775. I machined a hole in it for an aixiz module.

Anyway. I did a long run today. Just a hair over 96 minutes continuous at 900mA drive and the fan on, with the laserbee I logging every 10 seconds.

Maxiumum power measured was 802mW. Minimum was 791mW.

That comes out to a stability of .014%... and I bet the fluctuations that were happening were due to air from the fan making it around my improvised baffle.

Needless to say, there's certainly no duty cycle with this thing. The highest temp I measured anywhere on the heatsink, with an IR thermometer, was 78 degrees.







The full CSV datalog is available here. http://weasel.brazi.net/webstuff/lpf/a130.txt

I just pulled a heatsink out of an old pentium 3 PC and it has a solid rod about 1" and a half in diameter of copper in the middle that then feeds heat out to the beefy aluminum fins. I do see these a lot and I usually save them for computer purposes but since I don't run Pentium 3's (in fact I don't even run pentium's at all) this one will probably end with the same fate as yours. I may post pic's when I get around to doing it.

Also, you have the sweetest basement. I envy you

Actually, I looked EVERYWHERE for a source of the heatsinks your talking about. The new CPU stuff is fairly overkill. the P3 heatsinks were much better sized. I unfortunately don't see many p3's anymore.

That's not a basement lol. That's the office where I work. The escrap place that used to take all our old stuff went under, so it's just been piling up.

Sorry, you have an awesome office

I only found one with a solid piece of copper in it. The new ones are pretty much overkill like you said and can get relatively expensive. But as for the P3 sized ones they are very difficult to find a steady source of, even at escrap recycling places (at least where I live).

I found some originally but when I called the surplus place that had them listed, I got informed they only had two. lol

I'll probably cut this one i'm using here down to 60mm x 60mm at some point in the future, and add corrective optics and turn it into an actual usable labby.

hay what site did you get that from
and what did the heatsink come out of

Google 'deep cool socket 775' but it appears they don't make these anymore. The lowest price I see for them now is almost 3x what I paid for the batch I bought originally, and none of the primary distributors my company deals with has them in stock anymore.

That's one thing I hate about the PC industry these days. It's hard to find the same part 3 months later...

It always worries me when I see high power lasers precariously mounted on the bench. If that thing wobbles off the role of tape, or you catch the cables with you hand that thing could flash you in the eyes... Please please mount it securely.

It could.. but I was wearing goggles.. just like I always do.. And not WL goggles either. heh I've tried pushing 1.3W (estimated, LPM only goes to 1050mw)through them and got nothing visible through them.

I was the only person in the building as well.

And BTW that's the reason to wear safety goggles. In case accidents like you describe happen.

Though you'll be happy to know that a base has already been fabricated and it no longer lives on roll of masking tape.

Though here's some pics I took playing around with it the next day before anybody else got to the office. Was still pre-base though, since the original pics were taken one night and these were the next morning when I did the 96 minute test.

Setting a paper towel on fire.


Punching holes through a piece of cardboard