Hey guys,
I got my hands on a 2"x12" copper grounding bar, and decided to use it as a heatsink for LEDs. After doing a heat test, with the bar about 1/2 populated with some cheap LEDS, I determined it needed more surface area to dump the heat that it would hold - it would get HOT.
I went out and purchased 2 CPU coolers, tapped the holes on the bases for 8-32 threads, applied some thermal compound, and attached them to the ground bar. Did the same heat test, and it barely went a degree above ambient.
I was tempted to go the way of this dead thread:
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?398630-XHP70-crude-test
and slap on a bunch of xhp-70s, but i'm no Scrooge McDuck.
finished album: http://imgur.com/a/Pt5cd
I'm using the light to grow house plants indoors, i've noticed good results with certain ratios of colours, will update later when i can show you what i mean with pictures as well as text.
I've seen alot of people who drill and tap aluminum or copper heatsinks, but it seems redundant, you can drill and use thread forming screws - no chance of breaking a tap and saves time. During the drilling and screwing, I started with a bit that was a little too small, and snapped off a screw flush with the heatsink
. I did some searching on the internet and found a solution. Soaking the parts in an alum bath - i put them in a large ziploc (with alum and water) and immersed the bag in a hotwater bath in a crockpot. I left this for a few days and the screw dissolved, leaving a perfectly intact Cu bar.
The LEDs and drivers are in the mail, they should be here by next week, so i'll update soon.
I got my hands on a 2"x12" copper grounding bar, and decided to use it as a heatsink for LEDs. After doing a heat test, with the bar about 1/2 populated with some cheap LEDS, I determined it needed more surface area to dump the heat that it would hold - it would get HOT.
I went out and purchased 2 CPU coolers, tapped the holes on the bases for 8-32 threads, applied some thermal compound, and attached them to the ground bar. Did the same heat test, and it barely went a degree above ambient.
I was tempted to go the way of this dead thread:
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?398630-XHP70-crude-test
and slap on a bunch of xhp-70s, but i'm no Scrooge McDuck.
finished album: http://imgur.com/a/Pt5cd
I'm using the light to grow house plants indoors, i've noticed good results with certain ratios of colours, will update later when i can show you what i mean with pictures as well as text.
I've seen alot of people who drill and tap aluminum or copper heatsinks, but it seems redundant, you can drill and use thread forming screws - no chance of breaking a tap and saves time. During the drilling and screwing, I started with a bit that was a little too small, and snapped off a screw flush with the heatsink
. I did some searching on the internet and found a solution. Soaking the parts in an alum bath - i put them in a large ziploc (with alum and water) and immersed the bag in a hotwater bath in a crockpot. I left this for a few days and the screw dissolved, leaving a perfectly intact Cu bar.The LEDs and drivers are in the mail, they should be here by next week, so i'll update soon.
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