RE: Heatsinks

Andrew J — Fri, 22 Apr 2022 16:45:20 GMT

That is a really interesting and useful result to see, thanks for doing it Michael. Empirical testing seems to be the only answer as the reality seems that whatever a manufacturer claims for thermal resistivity or conductivity has to be treated with some circumspect. For example, some of the figures that Bergquist quote for its Sil-Pads is based on 200PSI pressure applied to the pad. The caveat always given is do your own testing in your own setup! Fair enough I suppose, but it would be useful if the testing was a bit more realistic and I certainly wish manufacturers of these things would standardise on a specification unit!

It's a beast of a fan, mind, at nearly 8.5W: it was blowing, rather than sucking, across the heatsink? This does show that with some monitoring and automatic control, a cheaper solution can be achieved than, say, lumping out £70 for a tube heatsink which actually does no better. I think in my case, I'm right in revising my approach downwards to a more manageable power level but it will be interesting to see if I can set up a controlled test to drive it to 150W. Like you I do have a supply that can do 180W but I don't really need a DC load rated to these sorts of levels.

PS: I like those vice.