Dorcy heatsink

[stevetexas]

Here is a heatsink I am using for the mini dorcy.  
The colored heatsinks were purchased on e-bay.  
The internal heatsink was made by placing the "glass" end of the dorcy head down onto a piece of aluminum foil and melting about 3/8" of non-rosin core solder into it.  
I then placed 10 US pennies into the head and melted more solder around it to fill the gaps and create a solid block in the head of the dorcy.
I will drill out a hole in the center for whatever module I choose and mount it with thermal epoxy later.  The e-bay heatsinks are optional  

 

[Greenie]

Awesome Stuff guy. Did those come off of an nitro RC Car?

Nvm you told me.. killer heatsinkage.

 

[stevetexas]

obviously this is still very early in the process, and I will need to polish and refine it so it looks better, but the idea is sound.

 

[Greenie]

I think it is sweet. Great idea

 

[stevetexas]

it only cost 10 pennies, 3 feet of solder, some butane for the torch, and 30 minutes

 

[stevetexas]

I drilled a center pilot hole (1/8") with my dremel drill press and then expanded the hole for my module (15/32"). It fits nicely and conducts heat well.

I will grind off the "ribs" on the head of the dorcy so it will fit entirely inside the e-bay heatsink.

When my diodes come in I will mount the module with thermal epoxy on the "base" of the module and thermal grease on the "optics/diode head"

This way I will be able to replace the optics and diode if they are damaged.

 

[SenKat]

Wooooooooooo-hoooooooooooooo ! EXCELLENT WORK ! Okay man - pretty soon, the Pulsar will be a thing of the past ! Muahahahaha !

 

[Kenom]

it's lookin awesome bud.  There is no doubt that this is going to work good.  1 thing.  Don't use thermal EPOXY to mount your diode it will be a bear to remove if you need to replace it.  Thermal grease will be the same thing as thermal epoxy as far as conducting heat and it's just a grease so won't stick the diode in place!  This is a very nice mod and I'm pretty impressed.  Since you have come up with a good means of wicking the heat do you still want those spacers?

One thing you may wanna consider.  (i'm not nitpicking I'm trying to make this work the best for ya!) The Aixiz module from the diode to the lense is only about an inch.  This is really the only thing that needs your plug and having a really large plug is IMO not necessary.  You want room up top for the optics to stick out and still have something to cover your solder plug (unless your gonna color it with paint or something) and you want to leave room below for your connection to the flashlight electronics (star)  So you may try making a smaller plug.  If you leave the module free floating with thermal grease in between the module and plug it's easy to remove the whole thing since your plug is about 2" ?  but since it's so big there is a lot of room below the diode's base that is in the way.  I'll see if I can show ya what I mean in a reproduction.

Still, Excellent work!

 

[Revolvr]

Can you give us the eBay item ID? I'd like to look for similar heatsinks.

You might be thinking the copper US penny will conduct heat well. Possibly not. These days the penny is made of about 98% Zinc with about 2% copper plating.

-- Rev

 

[stevetexas]

kenom - yep it is proabably a bit long but I'll adjust it later.  I did drill out the hole and it fits the module perfectly.  The thermal epoxy will be on the body of the module and the grease on top by the optics and diode.  I will still be able to unscrew the top portion if the diode dies
I'm not going to use the star for my setup.
These are the modules I'm using ebay# 300127279312

rev - the pennies condust heat very well.  I would try copper washers in the future though.
 some of the pennies I used are mostly copper though (older ones...)

the colored heatsink is for an RC motor  e-bay #190031760164  any similar ones  the same size will work

 

[Xenodius]

IIRC pennies before 88 are all copper... Excellent work! I will have to figure this out for mine when I get it all together.

I don't want to have to impose a 20 second duty cycle LOL! (Thats probably good w/o heatsink though? 20 seconds on, 10 off?)



PS: Wow, those modules actually look very nice... assuming that front piece can be used to adjust focus.

 

[stevetexas]

As you can see, the module fits very tightly in the newly drilled hole.

My plan, to clarify, is to use thermal epoxy on the back half of the module where the wires come out. The the front section of it has threads to allow the optics/diode portion to screw into it.

The diode/optics portion will be coated in thermal grease (being careful to avoid the lens) and screwed into the epoxy mounted back half .

I think I will leave part of the knurled focus adjustment sticking out of the front.



.

 

[stevetexas]

obviously I still need to polish it up a bit and grind down the flared portion of the dorcy head so it fits in the e-bay heatsink.  hopefully you can see where I'm going with this, adding thermal mass and a prefab heatsink... It is simple to do, requires very little work or $$$$ and should turn the mini dorcy into a full duty cycle red. Hopefully the battery will run out before it becomes hot enough to damage the diode

 

[Daedal]

That is looking pretty nice and... cool :

Nice work Steve! This motivates me to do the same; ;D
DDL

 

[stevetexas]

Here is the dorcy with the "knurling" of the head ground off.  The e-bay heatsink fits VERY well now. The other thing is a 1/8" brass disc a friend gave me. I'll use it as a different heatsink somewhere.

 

[windstrings]

Very nice, you and Senkat ought to make music together!