Thorlabs MTDEVAL TEC

Laboratory grade TEC drivers is a preferred solution when you can afford them. But for people who are tight on budget, the MTDEVAL board of Thorlabs offers satisfactory TEC performances with minimal technical skills required (very few soldering etc.).

Here, we propose a 3D-printed enclosure to safely operate your MTDEVAL in a lab environment without risking on shorting the PCB by letting it sit on a table.

The enclosure is shown in Figure 1.

Note that a thermal analysis revealed that the fan was a good idea when putting the board in a closed box. Most of the heat was actually generated by the voltage regulator although the MTD415T chip itself went to ~35°C in natural convection conditions using a small heatsink on top of it. Using the fan, its temperature did not go beyond 30°C inside the box.