I need to get a better method of cooling my laser now that I am running it quite a few hours at a time. It is for a 60W laser. I know the CW3000’s are a radiator and not a chiller, but if run in tandem with a 5 gallon reservoir would it be cable of maintaining the water at the ambient room temperature (in my case it is 20 deg Celcius) ? I really don’t have the money for a CW500 or equivalent right now. What is the general consensus of my proposed plan, would it work or do I really need to get the 5000?
Thanks in advance for any help and advice you can give me.
A 60W laser needs to dump about 240W of excess heat. The CW3000 is rated at 50W/C so the temperature of the water should get to about 5 C above ambient.
A gallon of water is a heatsink that takes about 16kJ to raise the temperature 1 degree. So 240W (240J/s) will raise 5 gallons about 1 deg C in 5 mins. It’s actually better than this as the water itself radiates and conducts the heat to the environment, but that’s very dependent on what it’s held in.
It seems to me that the CW3000 might just about cope as long as ambient isn’t above 20C. The reservoir will keep it cool for about 25 mins so will give you a bit of time to notice excessive heating.
Actual performance is likely to be a bit better as the laser doesn’t run all the time - there are moves without cutting, and you probably spend a while loading and unloading the cutter.
You could also consider secondhand sources of chillers - eg put the reservoir in a fridge. Be careful not to get the water too cold, though.
I’ve based this on published figures and estimates, and may have made errors. YMMV.