Homebrewed Electricity > Controls

Source for large heat sinks?

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makenzie71:
I'm using a stack of solid state relays and they generate a lot of heat.  I've been using them with CPU heat sinks and they more or less work but sometimes it's still not enough (CPU heat sinks generally have a 1"x1"~ish contact area).  So I've got them mounted to an aluminum "C" channel from an old Knight dental track light.  The framing for this fixture is .25" thick all over and it's an easy way to mount a fan.  The channel itself might be an adequate heat sink but I'm trying to go a little overkill with it and am mounting sinks inside the channel as well.  I only have these CPU heat sinks, though, and only the side draft ones are going to be very effective...I'd like some big beefy ones to mount inside.  Looking on eBay and amazon and such I'm seeing some large sinks that are about a foot long but are also around $100 a pop.

I'm just curious if any of you fellows happens to know of any less orthodox sources of heat sinks that might be suitable for this project?  I'm going to be doing a fer similar thing with my bridge rectifiers so the sinks I'm seeing on eBay that look right are going to turn into about $1000usd worth of heat sinks lol.

taylorp035:
If you blocked off the end with the fan, I would think it would help send air through the "C" channel and past the heat sinks.  This would likely help it cool better.

makenzie71:
The end by the fan will be blocked off, it'll pull air from the other side, I'm just wanting to find some better way to get some fins in there to pull heat away from the SSR's.

noneyabussiness:
hunt around for a old Grid tie inverter, usually have large heatsinks on them... and generally 2nd hand are cheap.. as a bonus,  usually have a plethora of quality components in them..

machinemaker:
Maybe look out for someone with bad VFD's or old DC power supplies. some big maintenance departments in local manufacturers could be junking out old equipment. Do you have a tablesaw? If so buy a sheet of heavy Aluminum plate and using a fairly fine tooth carbide blade rip slots in the plate to create fins.
Kent

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