445nm Cooling - TEC or not?

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

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.

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.

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

What is the full square of heatsink?

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.

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

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)

Oh. I see!

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

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