Re: Done with this S***
You deleted my post for simply pointing out I need Cyparagon to answer why the LPM is acting that way after he was challenging my response that this is what I observed? I didn't see it as aggressive at all, although I did call him the expert which is true, he is far more of an expert than me.
Hap already showed his LaserBee meter behaves that way, mine does too. So, that isn't in question, what I have a question about is why these meters are behaving that way, when their heat sink has another heat sink against them, they read differently. Edit: I believe a big part of it is if the meter is zero'd with, or without, the heat sink resting on another heat conductive surface (or not) and then moved to a fairly good heat conductive surface such as aluminum.
Another thing I am unsure of is whether you can dump power into a LaserBee meter for an extended time without the heat sink becoming more and more ineffective, if it warms up too much, your zero point will be different then. Of course, this would be far more of a problem at much higher power levels than 100mw. I experienced measurement inaccuracies when trying to measure below 5mw, depending upon whether the Laserbee heat sink was resting on a heat conductive surface, or not.
Before someone comes along and tells me that low of a power is outside its ability to accurately measure (spec), I know that, but I found I could get consistent readings at extremely low power if I better thermally isolated the sensor from what it was sitting on. Perhaps the different readings are more pronounced at lower power levels, I know how sensitive the meter can be to even breathing towards the sensor, if sitting close to it, it can jump a couple of mw just from that. Too see how the laserbee sensor behaves at higher power levels I'd need to set up my meter again to see, but didn't Hap just post he saw quite a bit of difference when he moved the sensor off of the aluminum plate? I hope he re-zeroed it when he did that, but he was above 100mw of power and saw a difference.
I agree these observations don't make sense if the heat sink is simply to keep one side of the TEC at a stable temperature, but that little heat sink on a LaserBee doesn't seem big enough to me, there is no way the temperature of the little heat sink won't slowly creep up to throw the T delta off between the two sides of that small TEC and thus the voltage being produced by it as it warms. I will have to try my meter both ways to see, but my stuff is all packed up now, won't be doing that before I leave to go to Afghanistan soon.
Ped, I'm surprised you were affected by my answer to Cyparagon's challenge.
