daguin
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I love the Arctic host, but hate the poor QC and components of the laser. I have repaired a few of them, but decided to move beyond repair to make the Arctic all that it could be. To that end, here is how I decided to improve the laser. I ended up with two basic builds. However, both of them will follow mostly the same steps. Only the components will change
These are built with the G1 version of the Arctic. I have not disassembled a G2 yet. With this mod you will loose the battery indicator light functionality. I think it is worth it
**EDIT** -- I have now done this mod to a G2 version.
The internal measurements are the same.
The heat sink does not need to be altered.
There is a "blob" of epoxy holding the "smart switch" in place that must be removed (mechanically). Once that is out of the way, the heat sink I designed will work with the G2 as well.
When you remove the lens of the Arctic, you will be confronted with something like this
Remove the central black portion by unscrewing it. Yours may look a bit different. I have found a couple of different "versions" of this part and sometimes more than one part come loose when you unscrew it.
You need to get it down to where you only have wires coming out of the front. As I said, your may come out in one piece or multiple pieces.
Cut the wire to remove the diode and lens assembly. Your wires and/or pins may have broken when you unscrewed the assembly
Notice my "custom" Arctic driver removal tool You want the center of the tool to be hollow like this to avoid crushing the spring
Place the tool into the rear of the host and smack it with a hammer
When you knock the driver out, it will break a "lip" off of the rear portion of the rubber ring/contact spring assembly AND cut the wires going to the battery indicator light board. The board and wiring will stay inside the recess in the body. That "lip" is what holds the driver in place. We do not care about it. We not only won't be using it, we will actually be moving it forward a bit. One of the biggest problems with the Arctic is that the battery space is too short to accommodate a protected 18650 cell. This mod will not only allow you to use a protected 18650 cell, it will also allow yo to use two 16340 batteries
Now clean out as much of that obnoxious thermal paste as you can. I do not understand the physics of it, but isn't there a point of diminishing returns with such a thick layer of paste?
Now beak off the rubber ring/contact spring assembly from the driver and toss the driver into the trash
Now comes the best part. I hated the small assembly that the Arctic had for the diode. Plus, now with the stock driver gone, there was soooooo much room in there, I decided to design a good heat sink.
This is what I came up with. As I said earlier,this is based on the internal dimensions of the G1. I do not know if the internal dimensions of the G2 are the same
The cavity in the front is the same size a a full AixiZ module. The front part of the module will be held in place by a set screw
The rear of the heat sink also has a recess to accommodate the base of the contact spring assembly and any excess wire length. I had Jayrob make the heat sink for me. He has the dimension. Contact Jayrob if you want to do this mod.
http://laserpointerforums.com/members/jayrob/
This heat sink is massive. As you can see, it weighs in at over 2 ounces! You can also see the rear recess in this pic
I made three of them at this sitting. That is how many functional bodies from failed Arctics I had on hand One I made with a Microboost driver. I made two using Jib77's little 1.3A linear driver.
http://laserpointerforums.com/f39/fs-lm1117-based-linear-driver-1-3a-fixed-60213.html
The assembly is pretty much the same at this point with either of the drivers.
The heat sinking is different. I forgot to get a picture of the MicroBoost :yabbem: With the Jib77 driver I used 1/2 of the little memory heat sinks available from DX. To make it fit, first you only use 1/2 of the length of one. Second, you must sand down the two outer fins to make it fit into the pocket. Sorry. The next couple of pictures are out of focus.
Here you can see the driver with the 1/2 heat sink and the wires installed. I am using the host as the negative path, so the negative driver input wire will be attached to the case pin of the diode
The heat sink is placed on the side with the resistors on the Jib77 driver. With the driver and heat sink assembled this way, the LM1117 is touching the side and the resistors' heat sink is touching the other side of the heat sink. I recommend that you sand the heat sink down until it fits nicely. We would like to transfer some of the heat from the driver to the sink.
Here the driver and heat sink are installed. Notice the positive driver input wire is sticking out of the rear of the heat sink
The diode is pressed into the front portion of an AixiZ module. Solder the diode to the wires in the front and the contact spring assembly to the wire in the rear.
Here is the finished module next to the Arctic host to give you some perspective on the size of this thing
There is a small lip inside the host that must be scraped clean of anodizing. This is where we will get our negative path. I also add a little bit of foil here to ensure a good electrical contact.
The length of the heat sink, combined with the length of the contact spring, allow the use of a protected 18650 battery OR the use of two 16340 batteries. This way you can choose what kind of driver and battery combination you want to use
Once it is in place, it should look like this
I decided that it actually looks better without the stock focus ring. Now screw the aperture cap back into place. The aperture cap will squeeze the module against the lip inside the body and hold it all in place and stable. I designed the heat sink so that the aperture cap would NOT screw down quite all the way. This ensures that there will be pressure against the heat sink
I like the smaller apertured "low power" lens cap with the lens removed. However, these are from used units. I only had one of the small apertured caps
It would look better with the front of the sink blacked out and/or a smaller aperture ring placed inside the cap. With whichever, cap you use, I recommend that you remove the glass. Using reflective glass at the aperture is one of the worst ideas I can think of
This mod allows you to not only focus the laser if needed, but it is also modular in nature. The module can easily be removed to repair or replace failed parts. You just remove the aperture cap and push the module out the front using a rod through the battery space.
Now to the really good stuff. This is the one with the Microboost driver, the single 18650 battery, and an AixiZ lens
This does about 1.2W with the 405-G-1 lens
This is one of the ones with the Jib77 driver, two 16340 batteries, and an AixiZ lens
This one does about 1.6W with the 405-G-1 lens
This one also has the Jib77 driver and two 16340 batteries, but this picture was taken with the 405-G-1 lens.
This one obviously has a very efficient diode It may just be my new personal 445nm laser
This one does about 1.6W with the AixiZ lens
So we have an improved Arctic and a greatly improved Arctic. I have run all three of these up to 3 minutes without any appreciable heat. I don't even test longer than that. When I need "constant on" light, I use a lab-style laser
Peace,
dave
**EDIT**
I was working with how to make the aperture of the laser look better than having exposed bare aluminum, when I came across a really neat solution.
In the stock Arctic, there is a black aluminum aperture that is screwed onto the diode/lens assembly. You can see it in the first two pictures above. I discovered that this front piece has an ID that is just a smidgen smaller than the OD of a stock AixiZ focus ring. I simply pressed the AixiZ focus ring into the stock aperture cover. It now looks just like the stock Arctic does.
I have removed the reflective glass that WL installed. This final mod not only gives the laser a stock, finished look, you can still focus the laser (using a paper clip) without removing the front cap
These are built with the G1 version of the Arctic. I have not disassembled a G2 yet. With this mod you will loose the battery indicator light functionality. I think it is worth it
**EDIT** -- I have now done this mod to a G2 version.
The internal measurements are the same.
The heat sink does not need to be altered.
There is a "blob" of epoxy holding the "smart switch" in place that must be removed (mechanically). Once that is out of the way, the heat sink I designed will work with the G2 as well.
When you remove the lens of the Arctic, you will be confronted with something like this
Remove the central black portion by unscrewing it. Yours may look a bit different. I have found a couple of different "versions" of this part and sometimes more than one part come loose when you unscrew it.
You need to get it down to where you only have wires coming out of the front. As I said, your may come out in one piece or multiple pieces.
Cut the wire to remove the diode and lens assembly. Your wires and/or pins may have broken when you unscrewed the assembly
Notice my "custom" Arctic driver removal tool
You want the center of the tool to be hollow like this to avoid crushing the springPlace the tool into the rear of the host and smack it with a hammer
When you knock the driver out, it will break a "lip" off of the rear portion of the rubber ring/contact spring assembly AND cut the wires going to the battery indicator light board. The board and wiring will stay inside the recess in the body. That "lip" is what holds the driver in place. We do not care about it. We not only won't be using it, we will actually be moving it forward a bit. One of the biggest problems with the Arctic is that the battery space is too short to accommodate a protected 18650 cell. This mod will not only allow you to use a protected 18650 cell, it will also allow yo to use two 16340 batteries
Now clean out as much of that obnoxious thermal paste as you can. I do not understand the physics of it, but isn't there a point of diminishing returns with such a thick layer of paste?
Now beak off the rubber ring/contact spring assembly from the driver and toss the driver into the trash
Now comes the best part. I hated the small assembly that the Arctic had for the diode. Plus, now with the stock driver gone, there was soooooo much room in there, I decided to design a good heat sink.
This is what I came up with. As I said earlier,this is based on the internal dimensions of the G1. I do not know if the internal dimensions of the G2 are the same
The cavity in the front is the same size a a full AixiZ module. The front part of the module will be held in place by a set screw
The rear of the heat sink also has a recess to accommodate the base of the contact spring assembly and any excess wire length. I had Jayrob make the heat sink for me. He has the dimension. Contact Jayrob if you want to do this mod.
http://laserpointerforums.com/members/jayrob/
This heat sink is massive. As you can see, it weighs in at over 2 ounces! You can also see the rear recess in this pic
I made three of them at this sitting. That is how many functional bodies from failed Arctics I had on hand
One I made with a Microboost driver. I made two using Jib77's little 1.3A linear driver. http://laserpointerforums.com/f39/fs-lm1117-based-linear-driver-1-3a-fixed-60213.html
The assembly is pretty much the same at this point with either of the drivers.
The heat sinking is different. I forgot to get a picture of the MicroBoost :yabbem: With the Jib77 driver I used 1/2 of the little memory heat sinks available from DX. To make it fit, first you only use 1/2 of the length of one. Second, you must sand down the two outer fins to make it fit into the pocket. Sorry. The next couple of pictures are out of focus.
Here you can see the driver with the 1/2 heat sink and the wires installed. I am using the host as the negative path, so the negative driver input wire will be attached to the case pin of the diode
The heat sink is placed on the side with the resistors on the Jib77 driver. With the driver and heat sink assembled this way, the LM1117 is touching the side and the resistors' heat sink is touching the other side of the heat sink. I recommend that you sand the heat sink down until it fits nicely. We would like to transfer some of the heat from the driver to the sink.
Here the driver and heat sink are installed. Notice the positive driver input wire is sticking out of the rear of the heat sink
The diode is pressed into the front portion of an AixiZ module. Solder the diode to the wires in the front and the contact spring assembly to the wire in the rear.
Here is the finished module next to the Arctic host to give you some perspective on the size of this thing
There is a small lip inside the host that must be scraped clean of anodizing. This is where we will get our negative path. I also add a little bit of foil here to ensure a good electrical contact.
The length of the heat sink, combined with the length of the contact spring, allow the use of a protected 18650 battery OR the use of two 16340 batteries. This way you can choose what kind of driver and battery combination you want to use
Once it is in place, it should look like this
I decided that it actually looks better without the stock focus ring. Now screw the aperture cap back into place. The aperture cap will squeeze the module against the lip inside the body and hold it all in place and stable. I designed the heat sink so that the aperture cap would NOT screw down quite all the way. This ensures that there will be pressure against the heat sink
I like the smaller apertured "low power" lens cap with the lens removed. However, these are from used units. I only had one of the small apertured caps
It would look better with the front of the sink blacked out and/or a smaller aperture ring placed inside the cap. With whichever, cap you use, I recommend that you remove the glass. Using reflective glass at the aperture is one of the worst ideas I can think ofThis mod allows you to not only focus the laser if needed, but it is also modular in nature. The module can easily be removed to repair or replace failed parts. You just remove the aperture cap and push the module out the front using a rod through the battery space.
Now to the really good stuff. This is the one with the Microboost driver, the single 18650 battery, and an AixiZ lens
This does about 1.2W with the 405-G-1 lens
This is one of the ones with the Jib77 driver, two 16340 batteries, and an AixiZ lens
This one does about 1.6W with the 405-G-1 lens
This one also has the Jib77 driver and two 16340 batteries, but this picture was taken with the 405-G-1 lens.
This one obviously has a very efficient diode
It may just be my new personal 445nm laser
This one does about 1.6W with the AixiZ lens
So we have an improved Arctic and a greatly improved Arctic. I have run all three of these up to 3 minutes without any appreciable heat. I don't even test longer than that. When I need "constant on" light, I use a lab-style laser
Peace,
dave
**EDIT**
I was working with how to make the aperture of the laser look better than having exposed bare aluminum, when I came across a really neat solution.
In the stock Arctic, there is a black aluminum aperture that is screwed onto the diode/lens assembly. You can see it in the first two pictures above. I discovered that this front piece has an ID that is just a smidgen smaller than the OD of a stock AixiZ focus ring. I simply pressed the AixiZ focus ring into the stock aperture cover. It now looks just like the stock Arctic does.
I have removed the reflective glass that WL installed. This final mod not only gives the laser a stock, finished look, you can still focus the laser (using a paper clip) without removing the front cap
Last edited:
Finally an arctic that doesnt just look good :beer:
