surfntom wrote:To answer your previous question regarding FEA and CFD. There are tons of packages out there, i highly recommend NOT using one unless you are familiar with how the methods work. You will hear this a lot "garbage in, garbage out". You can on the other hand get pretty pictures that might look convincing but its not use unless you have a decent grasp as to what is going on. Not to mention these software packages range from 10-100 K. If you are a student or know a student you can get a student version for free most of the time.
I had access to these, but I don't see much of a point now, when you can do a few calculations on a spreadsheet. (to get you a good idea of what's going on.)
surfntom wrote:you mentioned M-cubed heat pipes. I did use those and they were phenomenal, i would only change the steel brackets that they supply for contact/gripping the pipes. they are quite large for what i wanted and would have liked something else. For the price though you cant really go wrong.
Awesome, thanks for the feedback on that.
surfntom wrote:screws should be avoided for heatsinks because you want a good thermal interface. The tightening of screws and even the tapping of threads can (and 99% of the time does) cause a bulge at the surface. This why there is a recommended torque for IGBT mounting screws. Anyway avoid screws, try to use a clamping method like all current cpu heatsinks. If you must screw something together then use a through hole and actually SQUEEZE it somehow.
Most users of TIM use way too much. It sucks at conducting heat but its better than air. With that in mind use as little as possible like i said before.
OK...Maybe a combination of clamping and a tiny bit of TIM is sufficient?
I was originally thinking, when you attach the copper blocks to the heatsink, you use epoxy on the edges of the blocks and tiny bit of TIM for the inner area. Clamp it down while it sets.
Bluefront wrote:Since this thread has become filled with unusual ideas, here's another.....
No water cooling thanks...LOL, toilet.
I prefer if we stick to something highly reliable. ie: no moving parts as much as possible. Hence the reason why I'm leaning towards heatsinks and heatpipes.
I have a few questions though...
Does the length of the heatpipe drastically affect the thermal resistance?
What about the shape that its bent to?
I read somewhere about some flexible heatpipe solutions, but I couldn't find who sells these. Anyone know?
The challenge in heatpipe/heatsink approach seems to be getting that heat out of the case to the heatsink, but still be able to access the PC hardware inside. ie: Those removable case panels.
...Something inside me says I should just give up and buy a pre-made silent solution like Tranquil PC, mCubed, etc. Maybe use that refurbished ThinkPad I recently bought...Grab a port replicator for it, and be done with it....I don't know.