my big 10-12w rgb build

[badger1666]

hi all
just thought i would share my new rgb build
still a way to go but here's a start , hope to see about 10 to 12 watts when finished
you will have to excuse how some of it looks, i only have hand tools, no room for mills for me, so it may look a little rough here and there.
the only bit that was milled was the heatsink/baseplate, which i found a local shop to do.
first i built th red, using four p73's and a badpip driver,when finished will be tec cooled to around 8deg c , and sealed up in a box with silica to avoid condensation
at the moment at 15deg c it doing around 3.7w @ 1250ma


next up came the blue using 2x a140 and 2x 9mm diodes, again with a badpip driver, this to when finished will be tec cooled to 8deg c , and sealed in a box
this will do 5.2w max but will keep it down to around 4w


the green i brought a 2w oem laserwave, this one i am very impressed with, fired it up to find it doing 2.9w when warmed up, and the divergence a lovely 0.99mrad


for the base plate and the rest of the case i brought a 400x400mm heatsink , and had a little milling done at a local machine shop , to fit 3x100mm fans in the fins and a step all around the edges to fit cut 3mm plate for the sides

the sides and shelf supports

the base plate i had anodised and the sides i spray painted

next is the main build start, there will be a top and bottom section to this build , with the lasers sealed up in the upper section to stop dust and fog juice contaminating any optics
the lower section will contain power supplys and tec drivers , and will be fan cooled.




thats it for now , will update later in the week when i have fitted the sides and shelf
thanks for looking

[andy_con]

looks good, look forward to seeing it at the next meet

[tonyaztec]

That looks pretty awesome Chris, look forward to seeing it running.

[White-Light]

Someone got a good visit from Father Christmas!

Nice build in progress there Chris.

[Jem]

Looking great Chris, will it be making an appearance at Surfleet?

[badger1666]

i was only building it to use outside at surfleet i think 10w+ is a bit much to use in the hall i will have to turn it down or use one of your special lenses

Looking great Chris, will it be making an appearance at Surfleet?

[planters]

Nice build and I want to see more. I like these work in progress pictures because they are so useful.

I really like the aesthetics of the case/heat sink/fans. Slick!

The reds look like one of my builds (if I my be so bold). Cool them more aggressively. You can't overdo this as they are good to at least -30 and you'll never get there. They just keep getting brighter. Don't bother with the gel, it isn't necessary. The base plate is always colder than the diodes and acts as a getter.

The blues don't benefit from active cooling, but do from good heat sinking. Use indium foil rather than grease and keep the plate around them as cool as possible. Might want to consider dropping the A diodes and upping the power to the 9mm's. The Badpip drivers can run 2+2 channels with a balance resistor and will then give up to 4A x 2. A one over one PBS blue will allow you to expand twice as much in the prism pair for half the divergence.

Can you give me the head dimensions for the Laserwave OEM 2W? Does the power supply come with an enclosure?

[-bart-]

The Badpip drivers can run 2+2 channels with a balance resistor and will then give up to 4A x 2.

Balancing resistors are not needed when driving one diode with two currentsources.
You need them if you drive two diodes with one currentsource.

The badpip drivers can easily be modded to drive 4 amps each channel, as long you keep aneye on the the heatsinking of the outputtransistors.

[Alex_kld]

Why did you decide to use laservawe?
Now I stand before a choice laservawe VS CNI , what do you say?

[badger1666]

I chose laserwave because all its cooling is done through the baseplate
The same with the driver.
The reason is all the bigger lasers have fans on them
Not somthing i wanted in a sealed laser enclosure
A big fan cooled laser would just heat up the surrounding air

That said i am very happy with the oem
Laserwaves its the best one i have had to date