lm3886 heatsink options..which is best?

[robinlawrie]

Or.. i can look at his examples and get a ballpark figure, which i can see is higher than the datasheet spec, and what most people use, including, now, me :0P

 

[AndrewT]

That's what I have been saying for years.
Take the National guidelines and double them to keep the Tj low enough to not trigger Spike.

I repeated that same advice in this Thread:

I recommend you double the heatsink requirement that National guide you to.

It's dead simple and it works.
It prevents shutdown due to overheating, if you don't abuse your amp.
It reduces the number of times that Spike operates on transient peak currents.