Painting heat sinks?

[jakeGT]

What would be the best way to paint your heatsinks? Like what type of paint? I want to paint some of my heatsinks black So i can have a black on black MEANNNN looking laser!

 

[GBD]

Depends really on what your going to be driving and how large the heatsink is.
Generally, anodization is the way to go for the most convection and still having a black color, although nice and less expensive results are yielded with engine enamel (and not as complex as anodization) but worse convection.

Keep in mind the more layers of "stuff" you slap onto the heatsink the more you insulate it and worsen its natural convection rates as if it were bare.

I am going to paint a host im making after its done with matte black engine enamel (ive done before and it worked fairly good) exept Ill leave the heatsinking nice and polished (exposed) because of the heat transfer.
Either way you look about it, you can only really get worse heat transfer with any paint you put on it. Proffesionally anodized heatsinks can actually improve it, but I think this one of the few exeptions.

 

[jakeGT]

yeah, I just wanna get a good coat or two on it to make it look good and black, driver at 1.8A outputting 1.74W in my saik host

 

[GBD]

Then in that case, I dont think it will do you much worse if you put a coat of black engine enamel on it. Im personally a fan of matte, but these enamels come in all sorts of different finishes.
Just dont go too generous on your paintjob, the less paint you put on it the better.

 

[Mohrenberg]

jake, you can get black gloss "enamel" spray paint in the automotive section at wal-mart.
the finish looks great. it's about $6 a can.
it's really hard to get a good finish though so that the paint is perfectly smooth with no imperfections.

 

[DTR]

If you do that you could wrap the parts that you don't see anyway because they are in the host for good transfer from the heatsink into the host.:beer:

 

[jakeGT]

yeah, I was probably just going to paint the face of the heatsink!

 

[Coherent Light]

Jake there is a redneck way to anodize aluminum using Rit Dye I've lost the link but You should be able to find it if you search around the internet.

 

[Krogith]

Rough the surface up with some course sand paper other wise the paint will come off to easy. Don't make Really big groves... just really rough it up good. I'd use the black flat high heat barbecue paint

 

[Cyparagon]

the more layers of "stuff" you slap onto the heatsink the more you insulate it and worsen its natural convection rates

However, the material can improve radiative cooling, often offsetting the loss in convective cooling.

 

[GBD]

I did mention earlier on that certain anodized heatsinks actually improved in their performance with the coating, I take it this is the explanation as to why?

 

[qumefox]

I just used flat black acrylic enamel when I did it. and yes, you need to make sure you degrease the surface really well, and rough it up a bit to get paint to stick. Also, I think 'high heat' paint is probably overkill. If your laser gets THAT hot, your going to have other problems. Exhaust paint is bad as well, since it's designed to be an insulator as well as stand up to high temperatures. In an exhaust system, you want to keep the heat IN as long as possible. Pretty much the opposite of what we want in a heatsink.

 

[jakeGT]

a good word of advice to anyone wanting to do this, paint your heatsink, BEFORE thermally adhering your drivers to the back of your heatsink, would've made it alot easier on me. haha
But I got my saik, and my police kit painted, just waiting to dry now. Finishes look very good with the black gloss enamel you suggested moh

 

[jakeGT]

here is what I came up with in about ten minutes, and some drying time.

 

[qumefox]

Ah. on a slug type heatsink like that, it's not going to matter what kind of paint you use. heh.

 

[jakeGT]

Yep, $6 can of black gloss enamel worked just fine