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Making a heatsink

P

packratt

Active Member
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Location
near Richmond, VA
Have a nice hunk of AL plate I want to use to make a Heath style FSD heat sink.

Have checked with a straight edge and there are some slight irregularities that would prevent complete contact between driver and heatsink.

Any suggestions on how to flatten without mill?
 
Slight pressure with a single cut lathe file will make it as smooth and shine as a tit in moonlight, clean file with each stroke.
 
Last edited:
Should have started with the next step up in coarseness of the file. Used a smooth and that took forever to get the plate smooth.

I would have thought the AL would have cut quicker due to its softness.
 
packratt said:
Should have started with the next step up in coarseness of the file. Used a smooth and that took forever to get the plate smooth.

I would have thought the AL would have cut quicker due to its softness.
Click to expand...

Actually, Aluminum tends to clog a regular file. Glad you got 'er done!

Now if the weather is warm tomorrow, I might actually get my engine bay put back together. 70 degrees last Saturday; in the 30's all this week and snowing.
 
packratt said:
Should have started with the next step up in coarseness of the file. Used a smooth and that took forever to get the plate smooth.

I would have thought the AL would have cut quicker due to its softness.
Click to expand...
I did.nt say it was gonna be a QUIK job,i shoulda mentioned though to use diesel fuel as a lube,prevent the chips from sticking to the file.
 
Tip I learned was to sand in a figure eight motion then change the clock orientation of your "8" randomly but steadily and often. As you can imagine avoid repeated 8's exactly the same. This helps keep your flatness. Maybe use block just bigger than the FSD footprint.

"Ink" it up with a magic marker and it might? show the low spots if your sandpaper is good and flat and fine grit.

I like Heath's flat big ole plate. Wonder if some small perforations out a few inches away would let air flow through and increase heat dissipation with air flow through the plate???
 
Make sure you use Arctic Silver 5 as the thermal paste. It is designed to fill in some irregularities in the surface. Just a very thin layer of it on both surface.
 
This was a hunk of AL similar to Heath's. Apprx 8x12x3/8 structural AL.

Bison, I wasn't complaining just expressing my surprise at how slow it cut. I would have picked up a coarser file to do the rough cutting.
 
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