dicking around with a red diode

[andy_con]

had nothing to do today and got a bit bored so decided to dick around with a red diode.

the diode is a long open can x16 diodes, cost me £10

i used robins die4driver and his tec setup.

the big heat sink at the botton is from a computer, its has a copper centre with alum round the edge and a 12v fan attached. this has the hot side of the tec on it.

the diode is in an aixiz housing with an aixiz glass lens.

so i started off with just the diode on and no TEC runnings.

i set the diode to 300mw and left it for an hour, after which it was very hot (well he alum block its in way) and the power had dropped to 251mw.

then i turned the tec on, i had it set as shown by the blue line on the below pic

not 100% sure on the exact temp



left it for another hour and the diode power went up to 316mw.

then thought i would give the tec a good run and turned it half way, diode power went up to 328mw and the condensation started.

the lens was ok but you could see some slight water drop-lets on the alum block around the diode.

turned the temp all the way down to -5 just for fun and the lens fogged up.

after that bit of fun i turned the temp back to how the blue line is shown on the above pic and its been running now for 2 more hours. the diode is still giving out a soild 316mw and there is no condensation at all.

so the diode has been running for 5 hours total and its not had an easy time.

[allthatwhichis]

Nice experiment; did you get any temp readings? Poor diode; got its ass kicked for a few hours. I wonder what you did to its lifespan.

[andy_con]

no, no temp readings.

its back up and running again today, so lets see if it can lst a whole day at 300mw

[decix]

Nothing spectacular...
You can do >300mW with open-can diodes and passive cooling.

[FourDee]

How much is the D4Chill ?

[andy_con]

Nothing spectacular...
You can do >300mW with open-can diodes and passive cooling.

agreed 300mw isnt spectacular, but diode life is the important thing here!

im sure i could run it at 350 or 400mw but it probably wouldnt last long.

How much is the D4Chill ?

no idea you need to speak to robin

[gogu]

That's a sweet setup!
I too am interested in the die4chill, but apparently from the posts i read Robin ran out of them pretty quickly. Hopefully he made a few more. Does anyone have a layout of the board?

[andy_con]

my view is the die4chills are worth every penny

excellent bits of kit

[Doc]

Andy, did the apparent brightness change noticeably as you chilled the diode, ie due to wavelength, as 660nm is very close to the edge of the visible "cliff"?

[allthatwhichis]

Andy, did the apparent brightness change noticeably as you chilled the diode, ie due to wavelength, as 660nm is very close to the edge of the visible "cliff"?

I am also curious of this...