Originally Posted by BrianG

Well, yesterday evening I got bored (since the site seemed to be down), so I took apart my Quark to replace the thermal pads with epoxy like others have done. I used the regular AS epoxy though - I just took care none of it landed on the board or any electrical contact.

The pads connecting the slab to the heatsink and the FETs to the slab were about 1/2mm thick, so if you take them off, you can't simply epoxy the existing aluminum slab because then the caps are too high and it won't sit flush. The existing slab is ~2mm so I cut a piece of 3mm aluminum instead. It fit perfectly.

I didn't replace the middle slab though. The two boards come part easily enough if you simply desolder the 4 pins holding them together on the motor lead side. The other connector simply slides apart. However, there are a few surface mount device pretty close to that area and didn't want to take the chance ruining them from excessive heat. And anyway, unless you find a way to couple that piece to the external heatsink, it is just functioning as a heat spreader and epoxying it won't help all that much IMO.

Once I got it all together again, I tried it out and now the heatsink acts different. Before, the heatsink took a while to heat up, got warm, and then took a while to cool off. Now, the heatsink heats quickly, gets hotter, and cools off quicker. This tells me there is less thermal insulation between the FETs and the heatsink so there is a more efficient transfer of heat.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with the results and think it's a worthwhile and fairly easy modification providing you don't mind voiding the warranty. Once the epoxy is on there and dries, it's not coming off.