Question about heatsink adhesive...
 

Hi all! I put some copper heatsinks(from raidoshack) on my quark 125(cut a hole in the case),that already had sticky heat transfer tape on them. It ran great and never got over 135f in my revo(even geared for 55+mph) Now, at the rc-m bash(last time I ran my revo) the heatsinks were knocked off because of the monster triple! So, my question is, could I use some JB-Weld as thermal adhesive?(I do not think it conducts electricity) I'm having trouble finding thermal adhesive locally. So????????????????????? your answers will be greatly appreciated:mdr:

Bye:smile:

Try Ratshack.

They have heatsink compound, not adhesive. I need adhesive....

Thanks though!

Bye:mdr:

Why not just order it online? I don't think JBWeld will be the best thing to use.

Just trying to use what I have, I do not really like to order online either, other than RC-Monster that is!

Bye

As a practical matter, just about any sort of epoxy will work. Some just work better than others. Arctic Silver works the best for your appliaction with Arctic Alumina coming in at a close second.

I mess around with this stuff so much that I've abandoned using the hard to find/get stuff. I use plain old two part epoxy and mix it with aluminum oxide powder. I add enough to make a paste then just apply it. It works really well.

You can get aluminum oxide powder at any hobby shop that caters to rock collectors. It is usually called lapidary compound and is used to polish rocks. Just get the finest grit that they have. It should look about like baby powder and is sold in 1lb bottles and should go a long way.

Thank you very much for your answer! The part about the aluminum oxide power I don't get though, I thought you didn't want the epoxy to conduct electricity? I could just mix some sliver heatsink compound in with the JB-Weld then....hmm...

Bye:mdr:

I think its for the heat transfer and not conductivity, although they usually go hand in hand.

This beats the heck outta buying a tiny little tube of Artic Silver for $7, which doesn't go very far at all.

Hmm, I think I'll stick to the Arctic Silver stuff (or equivalent). I'm sure some epoxies with the oxide powder would work well, but seems to be a little easier to use the stuff created for the purpose rather than figure out how much powder to mix for good heat transfer while maintaining a good bond.

However, I would not use JBWeld as the base as that stuff is definitely meant for permanent bonds. With the thermal adhesive, removal is still relatively easy when/if you need to.

Thanks for the reply Brian, would you think some CA glue with sliver heatsink compound would work then? I'm pretty sure I could remove the CA if I ever needed to by throwing it in the freezer for a little bit...

Bye:mdr:

Don't know about CA glue. It's strong, but also brittle, and not really meant as a gap filler. I think if I was going to use anything other than the "proper" adhesive, I'd use some type of epoxy.