Hello all, its heatsink appreciation month here at RIU and in the spirit of the holidays I have been crunching numbers for my latest project: attempting to incorporate round-pin heatsinks into a forced-air duct, or "cool-tube", or "vinyl fencepost" as it were.
Unfortunately the best tool for the job turns out to be elliptical fin heatsinks. These work best because they are designed with the direction of the airflow in mind. In this configuration all of the fins are arranged in a uniform direction which allows for low resistance and maximum airflow in this type of application. They look like this and I cant find any for the price I want. oh well:
Next best are round-pin sinks. I found this fun little calculator to play with....
http://www.myheatsinks.com/calculate/round-pin-heat-sink-calculator/
It only calculates for square sinks but in my case thats actually preferable.
So plugging my numbers in.....100mm x 100mm x 40mm with 60mm of clearance in the tube [4" x 4" x 36" tube]. i get about .34C°/w with an airflow of 324lfm from my fan. i realize thats just the first heatsink in the line and the latter sinks will inherit a higher T
a
But at least it gives me (maybe you) a ballpark idea of what size sinks Ill need to get the job done.
Btw I converted from CFM to LFM using this calculator...
http://www.engineering.com/calculators/airflow.htm
Why is this significant?
Until now I had no idea how pin sinks work with active cooling. As far as I can tell, everyone is using them passively. Ive grown to like active cooling, maybe you like it to?
Maybe you avoid it because you like to run remote drivers like me and cable management gives you headaches.
Here's a secret:
4-pole m12 connectors.
They look like this and allow you to consolidate everything into one tidy package:
Thats the male side that i have hooked to the junction box on top of my bars. Kinda like an xlr but with as many wires[and poles] as you want and they are threaded so you dont accidentally unplug your shit.
Anyway, options!
