water cooled heat sink

[choi]

I bought a highly customized ps3 from my friend, the psu went out and managed to take the mother board with it. Anyway I only bought it for the LD and the optics in the sled. The ps3 had an external water cooler system the pump is small but powerful it empties out a 2 litter bottle in about 15 seconds in medium speed, the tubes are actually really small.

So here is the actually question is there small water cooled heat sinks for lasers?

I want to build a white laser and was planning to used normal air cooled heat sinks but since I have the water pump I figure why not use it.
Even if no water cooled heat sinks exits I still plan on using the pump.
Maybe use a cube like heat sink and attach a small water block?

Does anyone here sale custom made heat sinks? About how much would it cost to make a water cooled one? And if its not possible to make one than where can I get a copper cube like heat sink?

 

[Tech_Junkie]

If you want to make it portable you may have issues. First is power, you'll need a pile of batteries to push the pump. Second is size. You need alignable heat sinks. With water tubes this may be next to imposable. For a hand held unit anyway. They do sell water cooled heat sinks in PC shops, and web sites.

You really want to use a TEC. They come in small sizes, and dont draw too much power. I'd turn your research in that direction.

 

[choi]

Thanks for the reply. It won't be portable more like a lab style ill try to fit everything in a projector size box. I know alignment night be a challenge that's why I'm going to use the ps3 sled to make things a little easier

 

[Tech_Junkie]

I'd still use a TEC. You can mount it right to the sled with some thermal adhesive. It will make your life a whole lot easier.

 

[choi]

I'll try ebay or do you guys sell them here?

 

[Meatball]

TECs are all over the web. Remember that just like the laser diode, a TEC is a current controlled device. So be sure to have the right kind of circuitry driving your laser.

 

[Trevor]

This does have me tempted to water cool a diode laser, just for fun.

Relevant: there are rather respectably-sized TEC's in the A140's.

-Trevor

 

[Meatball]

I'm trying to find that thread...

where somebody just dropped their bare red diode into a glass of water where it happily lased...

cannot

find it!

 

[Trevor]

http://laserpointerforums.com/f44/revolution-diode-cooling-55621.html



-Trevor

 

[Bionic-Badger]

I'd take a generic water cooling waterblock and fix the diode/heatsink block to that in order to mount it. I wouldn't construct the heatsink itself from the waterblock. Putting a peltier between the two might also help move the heat out of the laser block.

Make sure you buy a decent laser diode before even bothering with water cooling. A higher powered laser diode like a 12x 405nm laser diode or a 445nm diode would benefit a lot more from being water cooled than something like a PS3 laser diode.

Having a nice big lab heatsink/case would be good too, for example salvaging the case from an old 473nm lab laser. It'll give you ample room to mount your laser, and actually has some TECs inside it you could use if you wanted (not sure what their ratings are).

 

[Benm]

I really do not see the point in water cooling for laser diodes. Lets consider the amount of heat we'd have to move, absolute worst case: Say you were to run a 445 at maximum power (2 watts), it would consume up to 10 watts of electrical power (running at 2 amps by that time).

Even if you decide you want to run it cold and use a TEC, the total amount of heat dissipated will not exceed 20 watts, which can be handeled by a (large) passive heatsink just fine. A very small CPU heatsink with a fan would be more that adequate in all cases - the power produced is less than that of a slow celeron desktop processor!