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ArcticMyst Security by Avery

Red diode temperature sensitivity

Canuke

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Joined
Sep 18, 2007
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How sensitive to temperature variations should a 660nm red diode be? Does this vary wildly from diode to diode?

My Sentorch seems to have a pretty wide swing depending on temperature. I was noticing that it seems to lose some intensity after I've been using it a bit. So, I sat it in the freezer for a few minutes, long enough for the cold to "soak in" (but not long enough to get to freezer cold -- just to refrigerator cold ~50 degrees or so), then tried it in comparison to my room temp Star Wars blaster which has a dr_lava diode in it.

From room temp, the Sentorch seems to be about 60-70% brighter than the blaster, and with use it drops to within 50% or so of it. But out of the freezer, it rises to more than 100% brighter than the blaster! I compared them via bounce illumination off of the same wall.

I tried the same with the blaster, but the diode doesn't seem to notice the cold as much as the focus control does (it defocussed quite a bit when cold). It also exhibits a smaller amount of decline when used for some minutes.

This is rather interesting, considering that the Sentorch is in a slab of aluminum but driven harder; the blaster is getting about 180mA of current, but has no heat sinking at all outside of the Aixiz module it's in. In fact, the blaster module is held in place with some stripped network cable insulation. (It's intended for very brief, intermittent use, so I didnt' concern myself with extra heat sinking).

I wish I had a power meter to put some numbers to all this, but with the writer's strike threatening to put me out of work for a while (I do VFX for TV/film in Hollywood) I'm in severe financial lockdown for the time being.
 





Y

yew.sir-name

Guest
sentorch in the freezer.... you're a brave man, maybe if you mounted a tec to the outside of the sentorch you'd get that increase all the time
 




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