the best way to solder 2-3 heatsinks together

dan · Post by **dan** » Sun May 23, 2004 9:17 pm

hi,
i eventually plan to break my BSEL1 pin, to force it to go 133mhz FSB,

(at which point the change/mod is irreversible, and i will finally know the mystery of whether i can undervolt and overclock my tualatin -- SOYO TISU has a bug that says "cmos checksum error defaults loaded" when you overclock

but my current project is this: i have 2 good sized and heavy fanless 1 copper another alumunium heatsinks, and one smaller fanless heatsink.

originally i superglued these heat sinks. it doesn't work.
unless there's a metal glue ive never heard of, i would imagine soldering is the way to go. unless you have a better idea

i've had limited experience with soldering electronics and wires together, but i don't have any experience soldering 2 pieces of metal together.

is there a link or does someone have advice? i suppose i could post before and after pics

Pigpen · Post by **Pigpen** » Sun May 23, 2004 11:21 pm

If I remember correctly, solder will not stick to aluminum. The copper stuff can easily be soldered to or together but aluminum would have to be heliarced (welded).

silvervarg · Post by **silvervarg** » Mon May 24, 2004 5:18 am

Soldering will not work as Pigpen stated, welding does work, but fine precision welding to get good thermal contact area is not easy, so I would no try that unless a professional welder does it. The cost to let a professional do this probably makes this a less than desirable option.

The option I would try is using thermal glue or thermal adhessive. I know that both Zalman and Arctic Silver produces these glues and they are sold by many computer stores.
This glue is often used to attach northbridge heatsinks and heatsinks to AGP cards etc. The thermal transfer is not as good as thermal paste, but still good enough for most things.

Zalmans glue is $2 - $3 where I live, and Arctic Silvers thermal adhessive costs about twice as much.

dan · Post by **dan** » Mon May 24, 2004 4:53 pm

thanks, i'll follow up on your suggestion. do you know if compusa or bestbuy carries this stuff? also, so heat glue stickes or bonds metal together? that would be great!

dan

lenny · Post by **lenny** » Mon May 24, 2004 5:06 pm

Another alternative is to put drops of superglue at the corners (or edges) and have thermal compound on most of the surface.

dan · Post by **dan** » Tue May 25, 2004 9:28 am

hi,
superglue was the first thing i tried, b/c it's so easy compared to soldering, but after several weeks it just dropped off.

(the heatsink is at a 90degree angle to the floor, as i have a mid-tower ATX chassis).

Ducky · Post by **Ducky** » Tue May 25, 2004 9:41 am

dan wrote:hi,
superglue was the first thing i tried, b/c it's so easy compared to soldering, but after several weeks it just dropped off.

Try using JB weld at the edges with the thermal interface material in the middle. It should bond a wee bit better than superglue.

dan · Post by **dan** » Tue May 25, 2004 10:07 am

thanks --- uh what's a jb weld?!

Trip · Post by **Trip** » Tue May 25, 2004 10:50 am

glue some of these on there: http://www.svc.com/cobgarachhe.html

ChucuSCAD · Post by **ChucuSCAD** » Tue May 25, 2004 12:03 pm

JB weld is some great stuff. You can usually find it at home depot.

chucuSCAD

celeronmanuk · Post by **celeronmanuk** » Tue May 25, 2004 1:15 pm

I did something similar a while ago on my Shuttle SV24.

I used Artic Silver Thermal Epoxy to stick two aluminium heat sinks together. It's still going now.

dan · Post by **dan** » Tue May 25, 2004 8:40 pm

that is exactly what my aluminum heatsinks look like! where did you get this stuff?

Post by **Rusty075** » Tue May 25, 2004 8:44 pm

Arctic Silver Epoxy, at Newegg

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Wed May 26, 2004 5:45 am

dan wrote:that is exactly what my aluminum heatsinks look like! where did you get this stuff?

CompUSA, Fry's and some Mom 'n Pop computer shops as well. It's not particularly rare.