589nm PGL-C teardown and re-alignment [PIC HEAVY]

[Sigurthr]

Re: the 589nm teardown and re-alignment [PIC HEAVY]

Yup. I've great faith in my module, it's just that the host... not so much. I've seen a huge thermal disparity between the module temp and the host temp. After two minutes of run time (with 45sec cool down in between) the module temp is 102.4F and the host temp is 78F. Clearly it isn't making good contact. I wouldn't mind if the host felt warm and there just wasn't much dissipation to the environment or thermal capacity, but there's clearly a high thermal impedance.

 

[ultimatekaiser]

Re: the 589nm teardown and re-alignment [PIC HEAVY]

well it literally just sits in there, its not fit to the module at all. (as I commented above) it'd be fine in a handheld of that size/class...just needs to actually use the host as a heat sink, which it doesn't really do hardly at all. it's too isolated thermally. I can only imagine how much better it'd be mounted in a proper heat dissipation of some kind, be it a full circular enclosed host like a handheld, or a kind of aluminum cradle in a block of some kind with a TEC to pull heat off of the module. it needs as much surface area as it can get.

 

[Sigurthr]

Re: the 589nm teardown and re-alignment [PIC HEAVY]

I somehow missed the part about zero contact with the host... I just thought it was poor contact. Yep, gonna have to rehost it. I don't want the lifespan shortened from thermal cycling, this is nuts!

I'm going to have to buy a damned digital caliper and pin spanner now, I know it -_-.

 

[DashApple]

Re: the 589nm teardown and re-alignment [PIC HEAVY]

I had a 1mW 593.5nm module taken from a pen ,

Arctic glued it to a miniature TEC and thermistor and got it to run at 2.4mW stable for a while .

 

[ultimatekaiser]

Re: the 589nm teardown and re-alignment [PIC HEAVY]

I had a 1mW 593.5nm module taken from a pen ,

Arctic glued it to a miniature TEC and thermistor and got it to run at 2.4mW stable for a while .

I remember that! It certainly helps with a little one like that... But ultimately thermal adheisive isn't as effective in huge amounts, it's just to fill small micro gaps between surfaces. Any more than that and it can actually hold heat itself and blanket/ slow down the heat transfer of what it's cooling. In this case it'd be better to put it in a heat sink using the paste to fill the gap between the module and the sink in a thin layer, (the idea is to make it thermally act as a single solid, rather than two individual objects) then actively cool the heat sink when on a large scale. These bigger modules get tons hotter than the little ones.

The more mass, the more stable the heat transfer.
The better the cooling & the more surface area, the better the dissipation of heat...and thus the longer the run time.