heatpipes

[infobot]

Forgive me if I've missed threads on this, been away from the forum for a while.

Has anyone tried heatpipes on chipamps ?

I'm trying out a Thermalright HR-07 MOSFET heatpipe added to a standard finned aluminum bar (ElectroHarmonix surplus from eBay). But just installed it, hasn't gotten a good workout yet. It's on an LM3886 gainclone from chipamp.com.

Just surprised not to find any for audio or other gear, just computers. Thought there'd be tons. From what the folks I got it from told me it sounds like computer chips run cooler than gainclones, but just don't know.

Anyway any info or even musings be much welcome and thanks. These things look interesting.

[wwenze]

The Virtue Audio T-amps do use a heatpipe to attach the chip to the case.

It's real that computer chips run cooler than gainclones - over 60 degrees and people start getting paranoid, over 80 does kill a CPU in the long run.

[neutron7]

a good source for heatpipes experimentation is the zalman "hard drive cooler" you get a big pile of heatpipes
the thing itself is quite useless but has lots of real heat pipes on it and they are much cheaper than trying to buy straight heatpipes and then bend them
they can be bent straight and then how you like with a "bending spring" (a spring that just fits over it) and then it keeps its round cross section.

[infobot]

Hey wow thanks didn't know that about CPUs. Think I saw some Virtue T innards while searching heatpipes, anyway looked like a simple block and short heatpipe.

I'll check out the Zalman thanks great tip. Looked at stuff like those but didn't see that.

I wondered if there were bendable ones, was afraid I'd mess up nonbendable so I didn't try it. Was tempted to remove the fluid or whatever and put in a copper tube or something.

The way I'm going about it is using an ample standard heatsink then adding heatpipes so it'll be okay-not dependant upon the pipes. Then I can try different ones to see how they work without frying chips.

Oh I saw a thermometer at acousticpc.com (Scythe Kama wireless non-contact thermometer) Just point and click, goes up to about the boiling point of water I think, for $20. Looked like a good idea safer but don't know what someone who'd know would suggest.

[infobot]

Just one more biggie:

Why aren't we seeing more of these ? Are they just too new ? Or not so great ?

The fluid temp ranges can be adjusted I'm sure, are there just too many varying ranges or something ? I may be overanalyzing.

[Redshift187]

I would suggest that the reason you don't see any type of CPU cooler used much in amplifiers is because CPUs are almost always forced air cooled (fans), while most people agree that fans are a no-no in audio unless absolutely necessary. The differences between forced air and passive convection cooling are important things to consider.

[neutron7]

well a fairly common trick to get a quiet cpu is to use a low powered one such as a E5200 and then put on a big cooler meant for a quad core and no fan, it works very well.

[jcx]

heatpipes simply move heat efficiently - allowing high power density at the chip but not any overall savings in actually dumping the heat into the air so you still need the same size heatsink - heatpipes just allow more cooling area to be further from the heat source

audio power output devices are often paralleled which helps spreading the heat - BJT 2nd breakdown can require lots of parallel devices to keep current in each down so that heat removal from each device isn't always the limit

also extra weight in thicker heatsinks to spread the heat is considered a sign of quality in audio power amps

chip amps can benefit from heat spreaders but heatpipes aren't the only option: thick Cu or maybe even pyrolitic graphite can help move more heat to the fins of a conventional heatsink

a non-heatpipe Cu slug/Al fin cpu cooler removing >6W from ea of 6 TPA6120 so-20 pwrpad chips:

[Rembrant]

Water works pretty good. It's kinda hard to drill into a water block though. I have always wanted to try water cooling an amp.

[MJL21193]

I don't get the attraction to doing things the hard (stupid) way. Regular, affordable and easily obtainable aluminum heatsinks work just fine.
These aren't nuclear reactors we are cooling here fellas.

BTW, happy new year