The one you showed above looks like a showpiece to me. Lots of material everywhere so heatsinking should be good anyway but I can imagine that more careful designing it will result in a body much more lightweight with just as good heat shedding.
Maybe the laser guys are less into continuous use than we, and short bursts can be solved by heatsink mass, while real heatshedding while keeping the laser unit under 50 degrees is a huge challenge?
@Djozz and Agro, I would advise you to see how a laser light is usually built by looking at styropyro’s video:
Most laser lights don’t use thermal paste to aid in heat transfer, there are no direct thermal paths for the lasers diodes to dissipate the heat effectively, most laser modules are press fit into the casings with no solder or thermal paste to aid in thermal transfer. Finally, most laser heatsinks aren’t directly connected to the hosts.
That means while the light itself doesn’t get very hot, the laser diode does.
How do I know this?
Well, I have friends that really like high power lasers, and since they know I’m quite knowledgeable about lights, they came to me when they had problems with them.
Anyway, I opened up many laser lights, even custom ones, and man, I was so disappointing with the crappy heat paths that the lights provided, and worse, how the laser diodes themselves are heatsinked.
Even something like a Convoy C8 is built way better in terms of thermal path vs most diode laser lights.
And the thermal design of SMD 3535-5050-7070 LEDs with thermal pads are leagues ahead of almost all diode lasers.
TLDR: Our lights, and LEDs+MCPCBs, are very well designed to get the heat away from the LED as quickly as possible.
Laser diode lights and the diodes themselves, on the other hand, are designed pretty badly in terms of getting the heat away from the laser diode, meaning laser diode lifespan is much lower than conventional LEDs.
What does the luminance of 1000Mcd/m^2 mean and how does that compare to kcd readings we use for flashlights?
So with CULNM1.TG coming close to 350cd/mm^2 without a collar, is it safe to assume that this LaserLight SMD would have close to 3x the luminance of a bare CULNM1.TG, and 1.5x the luminance of a CULNM1.TG with RLT collar?
Here is an article stating they’ve already managed 1000 lumens from the same SMD, equating to 1530 Mcd/m^2.
I had a reply from Lasercomponents recently, no way that they are selling to individuals. Last year I asked directly to SLD lasers and I could buy a sample for 250 dollar if I signed a non-disclosure agreement, which is rather pointless to me as a BLF member who likes to share my findings over here.
It does not sound like a group buy would be feasible in the light of the answer that I got (I think it is alright if I make it public since there is not any specific content in his reply) :
But maybe you are lucky in a direct inquiry at SLD Lasers
It is a lot of coin. But i would like to put one in the 900mm recoil and I have a 200mm and a 150mm PCX lens. the chunk of aluminium I need will put materials and lens over $1k so might as well go the whole hog.