There seem to be many different opinions regarding heat sink materials floating around. I did a number of Internet searches to answer my questions. The best material comparison that I found is here** with specifics on aluminum alloys here and on some copper alloys here. This information is corroborated by other sources that I located.
<ul type="square"> [*]Pure materials work better than alloys. For aluminum, 1xxx (commercially "pure") is almost 1.5x better than common 6061 T6.
[*]Pure copper has 2.3x better thermal conductivity than pure aluminum, but weighs 3.3x more. However, some copper alloys (e.g. beryllium copper) conduct heat worse than the worst aluminum alloys.
[*]Thermal adhesives have relatively poor thermal conductivity relative to solid materials. However, they are much better than air, a well known thermal insulator.
[*]If you can afford to, make heat sinks for those tiny lights from diamond. Silver is a poor second choice. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
[/list] Please pick your materials, adhesives, and greases carefully.
** Even better reference found here, but you'll need to click "Material Properties / Metals".
<ul type="square"> [*]Pure materials work better than alloys. For aluminum, 1xxx (commercially "pure") is almost 1.5x better than common 6061 T6.
[*]Pure copper has 2.3x better thermal conductivity than pure aluminum, but weighs 3.3x more. However, some copper alloys (e.g. beryllium copper) conduct heat worse than the worst aluminum alloys.
[*]Thermal adhesives have relatively poor thermal conductivity relative to solid materials. However, they are much better than air, a well known thermal insulator.
[*]If you can afford to, make heat sinks for those tiny lights from diamond. Silver is a poor second choice. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
[/list] Please pick your materials, adhesives, and greases carefully.
** Even better reference found here, but you'll need to click "Material Properties / Metals".