What can I use for cooling

Elmie

Enlightened
Joined
Mar 30, 2001
Messages
422
Location
Toronto, Ontario
What material is needed to cool the led's?
I'm not sure as to what metal and how I would go about mounting it to the led without shorting out the leads on it.
 
D

**DONOTDELETE**

Guest
Hi!

Cooling usual LEDs is not very easy because of the plastic case that thermally insulates the dice from the surrounding. Best and easiest colling is made via conducting the heat through the pins of the LED. So solder the LED into the PCboard as short as you can (you have to cut or sand the little squares off), and use a large copper plane on the PCboard to get rid of the heat.

Another possibility is to glue the LEDs on a aluminium plate with heat conducting glue (a blue 2 component glue, available in europe at www.rs-components.de or www.buerklin.de). The aluminium plate should habe holes for the pins which have to be insulated with a little heat shrinking tube. Then mount a PC board at the back where you can solder the pins on.

One really important thing is to allow air flowing around the LEDs.

Hope I could help a little...

Bye,
 

StuU

Enlightened
Joined
Mar 13, 2001
Messages
647
Location
Virginia
My understanding is that heat generated by the led is dissipated almost completely by the negative lead(anode). This means that you should solder the negative lead in a place where it will have extra mass of metal to dissipate this heat. Of course, copper has the best characteristics for heat conduction.

If you are using PC board, be sure there is extra copper on the negative side. Or, even better, use a double sided board.

I have been building PR type bulb bases out of 1/4" copper tubing, nylon nuts, and brass screws. This gives a great deal of extra copper for heatsinking. Use either the standard 1/4" copper plumbing tubing to match the exact PR bulb diameter. Or use the larger 1/4" coupling for a bigger base which will still fit in many flashlights such as the Maglite. You can make a flange for the base by soldering #14 solid copper wire around the top of the tubing. You will have to do a little hand filing but this makes a very rugged led PR base. Another advantage is that you can fit at least 4(four) 1/4watt dropping resistors or 3 1/2watt resistors into them if desired.
 
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