I just read through this thread and it just dawned on me that I saw a reference to arctic silver. If you are going to be using that stuff on the inside of the case, I wouldn't. Although it isn't supposed to be electrically conductive, I think that a matter for some debate. In any case arctic silver does exhibit signs of capcitance. Like I said, I'm not real swift on these sorts of things, but to me, capacitance or conductor, I wouldn't go wiping that stuff all over my expensive electrical equipment. I'd use Arctic Alumina.

As for the sink, it looks neat, but where are you going to put it. I have had experience with dealing with heat when messing with LED lighting. LEDs get VERY inefficient when you drive them hard and they produce a lot of heat.

Anyway, I've found that there are two ways to get rid of heat. Or move it to another place. The first is to use a big heat sink. What I mean by big, is mass. Say two to four ounces of aluminum. The other way is to increase surface area to promote convection and we do this through the use of fans. The problem with this is that air is a very poor conductor of heat. You have to move a LOT of air for it to be effective. The way that we are using fans is to make up for the use of small heat sinks.

Not to get off on a tangent or anything, but I'm bored, so here I go. You could do a little experiment. Take a piece of metal, like a 5.5mm connector. Hold it up with something that doesn't conduct heat very well, like a clothes pin and then hold it over a cigarette lighter (lit of course, LOL) for about 30 seconds. Get it good and hot and then blow on it and see how long it takes to cool to a point that you can hold it in your hand. Now, do this again, but instead of using a fan, just set the connector down on it's end to get good contact on a thick piece of aluminum or even steel and then see how long it takes before you can hold it. I'll bet that it will cool faster by just setting it down on the "sink" than it does by blowing on it.

Anyway, I like the heat sink that you are making. It looks cool, but if you want a heat sink that big with a lot of surface area, why don't you just mount it to the chassis?