ThermoElectric Coolers (TECs)

[Gazoo]

You will be very happy with the acrylic lens. I still have some more testing to do, but it is at least as good of a burner as the Aixiz lens.

 

[Things]

hehe my peltiers get next day delivery ;D ;D

 

[Gazoo]

Well lucky you... ;D

 

[JES]

Pushing a LD to higher power involves using a power meter and other meters to graph the Po / Ild curve and find the knee where added current gives no more output.
Another way to see it is to carefully advance the drive and watch for the beam to start going crazy, bluring, mode hopping, whatever you see going wild ---  Back off.  Don't do this without monitoring the current and GOOD heatsinking ( or spare diodes!).   Running over limits posted elswhere on this forum will shorten diode life.  It's a real mix of power, lifetime and sudden death.
I don't recommend going over 250 mA.  That will give you a good laser and your diode may max out at 250 mA.  
That's why no one gives absolute settings -- every diode is different and that's part of this hobby      When you push to the max, you need to do the math.

Mike

Oh Yes !!!  What is "off scale" is for you to determine !!! Science at work.

That is the procedure I was hoping for.  Yes, I will put it on 250 mA for a while and get my feet wet but I know me.  It won't be long until I try to push it just a little.   It did not occur to me that each would have such variation.  That is the kind of information I need.  That tells me I need to be careful even if I am confident of my heatsink and current quality.  It also gives me a clue as to what to look for to see the beginnings of failure.  That is exactly the kind of experience based info I want.  

There is no way to do any actual analysis here except the way you have done it; with lots of diodes to do many reps.  So it is sort of a seat-of-the-pants thing.  I wish I had enough data to do some math.  

What do you target your laser at while you are doing your analysis?  An engine block?  (kidding)

Thanks Mike.

 

[JES]

You will be very happy with the acrylic lens. I still have some more testing to do, but it is at least as good of a burner as the Aixiz lens.

Good news. I wondered about that. I saw that you had swapped out the lens of the Aixiz module on one and saw that the specs for the glass and acrylic lens housing was the same so I figured I had a backup plan. Thanks Gazoo.

 

[Gazoo]

Hello Jim,
Well the good news is even better. From what I am seeing the acrylic lens is a little bit better than the lens in the Aixiz module. Before when lighting white headed matches, I had to aim the beam between the head of the match and the paper to get the match to light. With this lens, when properly focused it will light the match when aimed directly at the head. This is only from a foot away but most of my testing had been fairly consistent, so I am sure this lens is a better burner. And lighting a safety match is so instant it's unbelievable. So we definitely have a winner here..

I popped the Aixiz module off of my heatsink cooler and am going to mount the block on it with my open can diode. The driver in my flashlight maintains current at 240ma's. I want to push the diode a little more and see what it will do cooled. I wish I would not have screwed up the diode I was harvesting last night. I recall slipping with the dikes into the can and I am certain that is what ended it. It is a nice led now..

 

[Hemlock_Mike]

Jes --

My target is black paper -- yes paper ;D

The trick is to not focus it on the beam dump - My dot there is about 2". I focus it pretty good into the wattmeter to make sure all the photons get registered to vote!

Mike

 

[JES]

Jes --

My target is black paper -- yes paper  ;D

The trick is to not focus it on the beam dump - My dot there is about 2".  I focus it pretty good into the wattmeter to make sure all the photons get registered to vote!

Mike

Good idea. You can see fluctuations better with that. I may also try dropping it onto an old photocell with a large dot just to see what it reads. Not that it will tell me anything other than a comparison value but I don't have a meter in my budget right now and the cell is just sitting in a drawer.

 

[JES]

Hello Jim,
Well the good news is even better. From what I am seeing the acrylic lens is a little bit better than the lens in the Aixiz module. Before when lighting white headed matches, I had to aim the beam between the head of the match and the paper to get the match to light. With this lens, when properly focused it will light the match when aimed directly at the head. This is only from a foot away but most of my testing had been fairly consistent, so I am sure this lens is a better burner. And lighting a safety match is so instant it's unbelievable.  So we definitely have a winner here..

I popped the Aixiz module off of my heatsink cooler and am going to mount the block on it with my open can diode. The driver in my flashlight maintains current at 240ma's. I want to push the diode a little more and see what it will do cooled. I wish I would not have screwed up the diode I was harvesting last night. I recall slipping with the dikes into the can and I am certain that is what ended it. It is a nice led now..

Good news indeed. Sucks about the dead diode though. Be careful with your last LD.

 

[Gazoo]

Yeah, I will. I am not going higher than 300ma's until I get some more. Now that I have a good feel for it, I will run it at 240ma's cooled and see if it seems to put out more power. I will know later this evening.

 

[Things]

haha you guys are allready trying to push them to the max!!!!! ;D ;D
peltiers are a great invention ;Di got my peltier yesterday, and it got to about -5C with a air forced heasink ;D ;D

 

[Gazoo]

Remember the one I am experimenting with now is an open can diode. It is a totally different animal than the GB diodes.

-5C? Come on things, you can do better than -5C.. ;D

 

[Things]

ya i prolly could, but that was first try, and i was only pumping 12v@ 4 amps through it.

 

[Things]

i got -20 with a heatsink in water but i hate using water as cooling because it's messy, so i just stick with air cooling. i am sure these pelts could handle more current/voltage, but apart from using a big and heavy lead acid battery, i have to use the 12V wall adaptor. it works well though, i can freeze a lid of water in 10 seconds sometimes

 

[Gazoo]

Well that's more like it... ;D

OK, well glue is drying and iron is getting hot...won't be long before I will be firing up my peltier..

 

[Things]

hehe that's nice to know! measure the temp you can get down to. i reckon we could start a competition "who can get the lowest temp using a pelt" ;D ;D ;D