DIY Heatsinks

Makhaira

Makhaira

Makhaira

Soldato
Joined
23 Nov 2007
Posts
4,994
Location
Lancashire, UK
Evening all,

I don't want to go into too much detail, because if it works I'll do a full writeup for on here, so I don't want to spoil the surprise (then again, it might fail terribly).

I'm going to want to take a small Al or Cu block and add some fins to it. I was wondering if anyone on here had dabbled in this before (other than the HUSH Project). My current thoughts are to cut very fine slits in the block, fill the slit with TIM, insert a fin made of aluminium drinks can, and then on the top surface of the block, where it meets with the fin coming out of the slit, secure the two together with solder.

My hope is that the snug fit of the fin within the slit, coupled with the TIM, will give a good thermal path through to the fins, and the solder will physically secure it.

Also, does anyone know when preference moves from a solid piece of copper to a copper heatpipe in terms of being able to conduct heat between sites? I may want to bridge a couple of heatpipes over a distance of around 1-2inches, but I'm not sure what the criteria are to select between heatpipes and solid copper.

Thanks for any and all advice guys!
 
Heatpipes are useful for moving the heat away from the source quickly. No idea where the crossover point is though!

TIM is not meant to transmit heat, and is only a good conductor when it is filling in the gaps, it really is not very suitable for filling large areas, and becomes thinner when hot. You will have to remove the lacquers on the drinks cans before soldering of course!
 
I was intending to stick the cans in a caustic soda solution - if that doesn't do it then I'll use sulphuric instead.

I'll be aiming for the fins to be a perfect fit in the slots, but TIM seems a prudent measure to ensure a good bond.
 
Can you solder both ends? Solder is far superior to tim regarding conductivity.

Ive looked into extruded al as a passive heatsink for a 100w itx board. It was viable, but expensive. Using fans should make life easier.

Interested to see where you go with this, good luck
 
If this works, I can see many people being interested in it, and it'd be worth looking at doing a "proper" job then with an extruded single piece or similar. For this though, I'm going for a Heath Robinson prototype just to see if it works.
 
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