I want to put Heat Sinks on my Raspberry Pi

[inevu]

Hey! I would like to put some Heat Sinks on my Raspberry Pi so I can do some overclocking. My question is: Can I put the Heat Sinks sold on the adafruit store? (For example: http://adafruit.com/products/1042) If so, how many do I need and what sizes? Also, I read those come with no thermal tape... what is the best thermal tape you guys can recommend to place these on the Raspberry Pi? Thanks!

[adafruit]

the two smaller sizes will fit on the two chips on the Pi - you can use thermal paste, its very common and sold at nearly any electronics/computer store for heatsinks

[qwertinsky]

Hi inevu I replied to your question about heatsinks on my R-PI in my thread http://forums.adafruit.com/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=35659&p=176715#p176715

I just wanted to say that regular heatsink compound like you can get on a computer store will NOT hold a heatsink on as it is not an adhesive. At my work we use Loctite 384 to attach thermocouples to electronic components, this also work for attaching heatsinks. But I am sure you do not want to buy a whole tube of it for a couple little heatsinks. Believe it or not common "superglue" has a surprising good thermal conductivity rating, in fact superglue is considered an acceptable method of bonding thermocouples to electrical components for CSA/UL safety testing and certification.

Beyond that hit the computer stores up for a videocard "cooling kit" many of these came with small heatsinks designed to be put on RAM chips and will have thermal tape on them ready to go. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6835708008

[Frizz]

Loctite & superglue? I didn't know that they had much conductivity -- they seem like they'd be insulators.

Will Loctite 384 or SuperGlue allow you to remove the heatsink from a chip?

[adafruit_support_bill]

I have never used loctite or superglue for that purpose. JBWeld epoxy works pretty well.

There are several types of product designed specifically for the the purpose:

Thermal greases are not adhesive and require addition mechanical means to attach the sink to the chip. Thermal adhesives such as Arctic Alumina and Arctic Silver will bond the sink to the chip. These are available in small quantities from most anywhere that sells computer components. There are also self-adhesive thermal tapes which I believe are removable.

[qwertinsky]

Loctite & superglue? I didn't know that they had much conductivity -- they seem like they'd be insulators.

Will Loctite 384 or SuperGlue allow you to remove the heatsink from a chip?

Loctite 384 is designed for this exact purpose, you can take it off but it is very, very hard to do after it has been on for a long time. So really I would say no. Superglue wile not as thermally conductive as 384 , depending on the size you can "pop" a heatsink off with a little effort. LIke I said above both UL and CSA allow the use of superglue as a thermally conductive adhesive to attach thermal couples to components for safety testing.

I will have to note that superglue does tend to lose it's bonding at around 75-80C.