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The need for custom heatsinks on PSU

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josh-starnesJosh Starnes 09/13/2020 at 03:590 Comments

It is not exactly headline news that pushing a power supply above its 80 percent threshold will cause heat buildup. Luckily Delta , the manufacturer of the AC to DC voltage converter has an entire aluminum plate as the top machined surface. I have the challenges of both keeping this module cool in operation on the drone and also keeping the modules weight down as much as possible. Clever placement can take advantage of downward prop wash of the 12 propellers. So a fan directly on the heatsink is probably not an avenue I need to take. I do however need to make sure the entirety of the surface of the hot side on the converter is covered. The size is weird, about 112mm x 52mm. A standard size would either be too large and wasteful as far as weight conservation or much too small leave 12mm in each direction uncooked. I opted to buy a much larger heatsink and I will try to cut it down to the perfect size and smooth over mounting tabs so I can use screws to hold it down. Screws holding both the module and heatsink in place means I can take advantage of a decent thermal past like Arctic’s Silver for good heat transfer without the need of adhesive. Actually correction , I will use the MX4 since it is non conducive 

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