Where to get heatsinks for TinyG v8?

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  • November 17, 2013 at 3:47 am #4957
    flux
    Member

    I just got my TinyG off the mail and saw the nice big copper areas below the board that would probably do well with heatsinks. Do I need them to run Nema23 2.8A motors if I’m using a fan? (Even if I may not be able to get the full torque.)

    Where can I get heatsinks that fit nice to TinyG should they be useful? They don’t appear to be available in the Synthetos store anymore.

    November 18, 2013 at 1:37 pm #4958
    alden
    Member

    The 2 oz copper on the board and the exposed pads are the heatsink. This (and a fan) is all we need to cool everything TinyG can run. I’ve been using the 2.8 amp Kelings (Automation Technology) that I think you mention.

    We used to ship TinyG with the little heatsinks (technically “heat spreaders”) that you probably recall. We removed the heatsinks because we discovered that using a fan to cool the bottom of the board was much more effective. The heat comes from the bottom of the chip, and the chip bottom is soldered via a “power pad” to the top copper and from there to the bottom copper through a bunch of thermal vias.

    The other thing we found that was on a few occasions people had managed to blow out their boards because the heatsinks slipped off the chip and contacted the leads. We replaced the boards, but now we don’t like to see heatsinks on the top of the board, and don’t recommend them.

    We played with some big heatsinks as you can see here:

    TinyG heatsink
    TinyG heatsink
    TinyG heatsink

    If you really wanted to heatsink the board I’d recommend some double sided thermally conductive / electrically insulating tape (see digikey or mouser) and a Duron or some other big CPU heatsink. But I have not needed this.

    November 18, 2013 at 3:35 pm #4959
    flux
    Member

    Thanks for the insight. I shall try my board with plain fan cooling, possibly even doing some measurements. At what kind of temperatures should I get worried?

    November 18, 2013 at 3:40 pm #4960
    flux
    Member

    Scratch that, the DRV8818 datasheet says operating temperature is -40 to 85 C, so under 70 C to be on the safe side and avoid overtemperature protection.

    November 18, 2013 at 7:49 pm #4963
    cmcgrath5035
    Moderator

    For what it is worth , I did a Heatsink job similar to what Alden shows on my V7 board.
    The drivers hardily get warm to the touch, no fan.

    March 17, 2014 at 1:22 pm #5641
    suaveant
    Member

    That heatsink is awesome. Very Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor 😉

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