Frosty CopperPins Heatsink
Frosty CopperPins Heatsink
There is something about an all copper heatsink that is just magical, almost as
if the weight of the material imparts some special kind of value... which in a way it
does. When comparing copper to Aluminum, the thermal properties of copper (i.e.
thermal conductivity) make copper the better choice of the two metals for
cooling operations. So when looking at an all-copper heatsink we're looking at
something that automatically seems to be, well... better.
So begins our attempt at constructing a solid-copper pin-type heatsink for
PGA or FC-PGA based processors. As always we hope this will inspire the real
overclockers out there to give it a shot - get some copper and make their own
heatsink...
First thing is first, what is the Frosty CuPins Heatsink for?
Answer: a very special Intel Pentium III 500E FC-PGA. What are we making the
CuPins out of? Copper, and nothing but copper! What kind of heatsink is the
CuPins this going to be: naturally a pin type (110 pins to be exact) with
impingement cooling by a small fan.
Let the fun begin :)
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The First Step
The base of the CuPins Heatsink is
not as thick as our previous attempt at copper based cooling. This time the base
is mear 4mm thick. A 1/4" plate formed the basis of the
heatsink previously.
The source of this 4mm copper is an
old printing plate. During a recent excursion to a metal
suppliers and a scrap dealer it was one of the many things we
returned with. The only problem that the printing plate poses is that
we have to remove some of the leftovers from its original purpose. Namely
a little copper maple leaf :)
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| Before being able to use this old copper printing plate
as the base of our CuSink we had to remove one of the engraved maple
leaves. |
To remove the maple leaf from the
surface of the plate we used a combination of tools. Using a Foredom with
a high speed steel rotary bur, and a range of single-cut to second-cut
files we removed the copper bump from the square section of plate which
was to be cut out.
Since this side would be the top of
the heatsink we weren't very concerned if the end result was not perfectly
flat. The base of the plate was coated in a green resist, left over from
when the plate was etched. Some wet-dry sand paper of suitable grade
(300-600) removed it easily, and smoothed out the base further.
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| A combination of rotary burs for the rough work and a
fine files for the finishing work were used to flatten the surface of the
section of copper which we would be working
with. | Once the area needed was flat,
we set about cutting off a 45mm x 50mm section. Nothing more sophisticated
then a small coping saw was used to do this. Lines were marked on the
plate to guide the saw and that was about it.
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