Thermal Grease Application Method

testiclees said:
these jawns seem to be unavailable in USA. Second choice?
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Testy, I thought from other posts you were going to use the Ideal holders. If so, I think you want pads like Sal's recommending, not tape i.e. no adhesive. Arctic sells pad material as well through Amazon. (LINK) As to which is a better way to go, I've no fact-based info. My guess is that either will work well provided the grease application is reasonable. Doer's approach looks pretty foolproof. Perhaps that a plus for pads; hard to mess up the installation.
 
HydroDC said:
Testy, I thought from other posts you were going to use the Ideal holders. If so, I think you want pads like Sal's recommending, not tape i.e. no adhesive. Arctic sells pad material as well through Amazon. (LINK) As to which is a better way to go, I've no fact-based info. My guess is that either will work well provided the grease application is reasonable. Doer's approach looks pretty foolproof. Perhaps that a plus for pads; hard to mess up the installation.
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Hey thanks man,

Yes i am using holders. ok.i see akasa is tape.

I can grab those pads you linked to. Is it possible to buy them in the correct size for 3590s? When you cut them to fit what exactly should they match? just fit the pad to the 34x34mm of the cob?


These wago winstas make a sturdy clean looking ac to driver connect.
 
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SupraSPL said:
I recall @stardustsailor had a situation where a large air bubble in the center of a CXA3070 caused damage to the center of the COB. So the paste can make a significant difference. I prefer to err on the side of using too much paste rather than using too little because you can squeeze the excess out by pressing and the layer will be very thing either way.

I think it was @Doer that suggested I spread the paste on the COB rather than using dabs. I tried it and it does work well and reduces how much paste I am waste. I have also noticed that Prolimatech PK3 can get thick if the temp is in the low 60s Fahrenheit, so making sure PK3 is not too cold can help getting a thin even layer.

Some diyers are using stencils I believe. Reduces the waste even further, maybe less messy but I do not expect any difference in performance considering that polishing the heatsink surface made no difference and stock heatsink pastes perform just as well as PK3 for our application.

And finally, I have checked to see if increasing pressure on the COB affects the thermal transfer and in every test the result was negative. So no need for strong torque setting on the screws etc.
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Well, the purpose of thermal paste is to fill "invisible" gaps, almost on molecule level so that a heatsink and a component make the best and "closest" connection, aka "use as little thermal paste as even possible". Any too much TP is still more insulating (and then would lead to more heat) compared to the thinnest layer of TP possible. You have a point tho with not using the "dab method". We do this for CPUs like this, and in many years I have never seen that the dab method would create a bubble or not evenly spread out.

BUT...I think with COBs it is different since we don't necessarily apply pressure evenly when we assemble them, besides the surface area where a COB module creates heat is MUCH larger than, say, compared to a CPU. (With my current Intel, the actual CPU is in the middle under the lid, it's really just a tiny point where most of the heat is created).

So I totally agree with spreading TP on the COB. I wouldn't use a razor tho, credit/debit cards work optimally to spread. You can also use some type of plastic bag, put it over your finger and then spread the paste like this, should also work on COBs. But definitely don't use "an abundance" of TP so that a lot of gunk spreads out after assembling, simply try to spread the thinnest layer you can.
 
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