EEVblog #1196 - Custom Heat Sink Design (µSupply Part 19)

Designing your own custom heat sink is cheaper and easier than you might think.
At look at why you might want to design your own heat sink, the costs, the advantages and disadvantages, design considerations for surface mount PCB's, air convection, and mechanical DRC, and die-cast vs machining.
This is Part 19 of the µSupply Design series

#Heatsink #ThermalDesign #PCB

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[Zardox-The-Heretic-Slayer]

"if you're doing 1000 of your product, you'd just order 5000..." Daves how to guide on hoarding for beginners

[graywolf]

Yes! Please do a heatsink design and DFM video!

[randycarter]

I've said it on another video. They just don't teach this stuff in college. Very useful information. Thanks Dave.

[kardeef]

Was thinking, you could 3D print the heatsink before getting the aluminum to make sure it fits the PCB and case before spending a ton of cash to only find out there is a problem. Also you use the 3D printed model to make a mold and make your own aluminum heatsink.

[brucet]

Dave, love you, but you're, 16 minutes in before you move on from turning that item over and over in your hand!
Repeating yourself over and over as well...
It' a cool product. (Hardly, the "brief look", characterized at 22:50)
Dave it's not the length that we love it's the insight.

[mdizzle]

Please do have David 2 put together a video on how he did that heatsink and prep the files for sending to the manufacturer :)

[SverigeKodar]

If it's on the back of the product, wont all the joules just fall out an no heat will be retained inside the device?
They behave like electrons, don't they? ;)

[DrakkarCalethiel]

If you have a cutting machine like the silhouette cameo you can cut the sil-pads yourself. Works great!

[ImGriffinP]

This was a phenomenal video Dave. As a mechanical engineer, I am always trying to blend my love for ME, EE, and design for manufacture. It would be awesome for a followup video going into the casting process and perhaps one on how you got that custom case you pulled up at 16:35 ? Keep up the phenomenal content.

[sibat]

Just wack some graphine paste on it, I’ve heard it has some magical thermal properties😃😃😃😃😃😃😃😃 it is 2000% efficient 🤪🧐😃😃😃🤪🧐😃

[ZaneDaMagicPufferDragon]

Yes, Please have David do a walk through video on the CAD process of designing the heat

[flymypg]

I've pretty much given up using silpads for anything but prototypes. I much prefer the phase-change material that goes on like tape, but softens to make a great, minimal-thickness thermal interface.

[insoft_uk]

The ZX Spectrum 128K had an external heat sink, looked quite nice.

[michelfeinstein]

Just one thing I think it's missing in the video: Clearance. You have to take into account the size variations of the chips and the Pick-and-Place machine positioning error, then leave this variation as a hole in your heatsink, or it will not fit on many of your products. (I believe David did leave some clearance by the looks of it).

[natecontarino]

They did a good job on the anodizing. Looks powder coated.

[yomamsie]

Heatsinks and EMC may be an interesting topic

[jadoo]

+1 for a separate video by David explaining the design process in detail.

[Audio_Simon]

REALLY want DFM stuff!!

I just had some heatsinks made for my LBM speakers (which you reviewed). I asked lots of suppliers which extrusions they already have and chose one that suits my needs. But, they have custom cnc drilled and tapped it and then anodized to my spec. Kind of a half way step to custom parts and ordered a couple hundred.

[movaxh]

uSupply is getting along. Good to see progress. Where are the programming pins for the main micro, U5? :)

[unknownsauce]

"a heatsink can be sexy to"... I need to update my Tinder!