Heatsink for board

[xairflyer]

I want to make a heatsink for my 3 axis board.

Can I make it in the one piece, for the 3 ic's or do they need to be electrically insultated from each other.

[CNCadmin]

It can be one piece.

[The Wizard]

Originally Posted by xairflyer I want to make a heatsink for my 3 axis board. Can I make it in the one piece, for the 3 ic's or do they need to be electrically insultated from each other.

A single strip of alumin(i)um was provided with my board for just that purpose. I will also be adding heatsinks to the voltage regulators as I saw on the Yahoo group that some people were getting 'hot' regs. Don't forget to use heatsink 'compound' when you add the heatsink(s).

Larry

[bkukowski]

just make sure that the metal heatsink tab is ground on the to-220 vreg and the stepper controller and that the heatsink touches nothing but ground. (I dont own a kit but I've seen pictures of it) you can pick up a heatsink for the vreg at radioshack + mounting hardware and thermal paste. If you build pcs and have cpu compound, that will work great too.

[100111]

i used heatsinks out of old pc power supply

[rippersoft]

I have used heatsinks from old AT powersupplies as well. I found a really big aluminum heatsink that just fit the X and Y chip and a smaller width one that fit the Z chip.

[janpo]

Hi All. Newbie.

So the heatsink is definately neccesary, yes ?

[2muchstuff]

If it generates heat, put a heatsink on it. Better to be safe than sorry.

[HobbyCNC]

Originally Posted by janpo Hi All. Newbie. So the heatsink is definately neccesary, yes ?

Yes, IF using 2A or more per phase steppers

Dave Rigotti
HobbyCNC.com