Mounting heatsinks upwards,, yay or nay?

[OllBoll]

I thought about mounting heatsinks facing upwards ontop of the amp case for ease of mouting everything from the bottom.

[IMGDEAD]http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/4151/heatsinkcase.png[/IMGDEAD]

So now I want to burrow your knowledge about if this would be a bad idea, or a good one.

Would the heatsinks cool as efficiently as if they were mounted sideways as normal or worse?

Thanks in advance,

Olle

 

[Lee Knatta]

IMO the heatsinks won't be very effective since there's almost no air convection. The heatsinks job is to pass the heat to the air and the heated air needs to be replaced with fresh air.
There's still some radiation but convection is more important.
Given you put another amp, preamp or whatever on top the heatsink will only heat what's on top, not cool the amp.
Better try to put heatsinks at the side of the amp with the fins in vertical direction. Power electronics are built like this for good reason.

 

[OllBoll]

Ah, I might just do that then =)

Thanks

 

[sajti]

It will work, but You have to increase the heatsink surface with 40%, to dissipate same power.

sajti

 

[tinitus]

or decrease power

I suppose you could say that heatsink temperature determines whether there's any cooling

but is it really practical to build that way, when you consider the whole amp with supply, adjustments, and such

 

[OllBoll]

Hmm, since I only plan to build a 2x10 W amp 40% more of the litte surface I would need wouldn't really be a problem...