droid heat sink mod

[mtz_gto]

When he said "the processor heats up than cools down fast, its hard to catch it"
I'm sure whats happening is the cpu is heating up but the heatsink takes a second to
take the heat transfer into it. (its not like its at 150 degrees than your dumping ice on it)

In theory, yes. Any object, especially a cpu heating up and cooling down is bad for it.
But i dont think there is a way to avoid the process of it heating up and cooling
down regardless if it is doing it fast or not.

Overall having the heatsink is better, because it disapates the heat easier instead
keeping the heat and causing more ware on the cpu/phone. (cooler/lower degree phone has a longer lifespan)

[czerdrill]

cool, but dont know how necessary it is. my phone idles at 27C and doesn't go above 45C...dont think its worth the risk, but definitely cool

[mtz_gto]

Reg temp for my phone tethering surfing the net is about 111ᵒ degrees.
This has been recognized by the dev of wireless tether...

I'm sure my phone would be at about 90 or so if I had this mod installed.

[raidzero]

Was any sort of thermal paste used in this mod?

[vmspionage]

So ive been thinking....
How much would you charge to do this for my phone...?
It's already a beast with the seidio extended 2800Mah battery... lol

Hahah, I don't think I would do this mod for anyone else... there's a lot of risk involved and I would feel bad if I bricked your phone.

Best DIY mod ever...
I'm going to go try and sort out my brain lol

Tanks!

Was any sort of thermal paste used in this mod?

No paste, I'm using a thermal transfer pad. They are based off the same concept but the rubbery pad provides mechanical isolation so a bump on the heat sink doesn't crush the processor or mobo.

[Xenosis]

Very nice, I've been looking to do something similar to my phone as well.

Where did you get the materials for the heatsink?

[Eric_VR4]

I'm very new to modding a phone.. I just finally rooted my droid yesterday and am only running "no frills cpu control" @ 800mhz, (and I don't really know how to run it higher yet or how to test it like you did) but I thought your idea was awesome so I went ahead and did it too.

I am not a computer guy.. I'm a car guy who makes thing work but my fit and finish skills are lacking so it is not as pretty as yours.. however I found some different ways to do it in the process.

First off I had a hard time finding copper. everything I found that was copper ended up being copper plating or something.. so I just used aluminum flashing I already had. It was very thin so I had to triple it over for the riser.. and triple it for the main heat sink. I actually think its a great idea because it acts more like fins and even provides some shock absorption.

I also did not have easy access to heat tape or proper adhesives.. so I used JB weld that I added about 35% anti-seize to.. and just hoped for the best.. i figured going from no heat sink to an imperfect one couldn't hurt.

I didn't have small enough bits to remove the panel (an didn't see the need since your photos were so helpful at telling me where the processor was located) so I just cut into it with a dremel and exacto-knife, and went to town.

It certainly works. It can get pretty uncomfortable to touch sometimes it's so hot.. and I assume that means heat is transferring well and that is a good thing.

Here's a few pics:

After cutting a hole with a dremel and exactoblade, I wires brushed the top of the processor.


a close-up of the riser that I jb welded to the processor.



some pics of the main heat sink.



JB'd and drying.


finished.


Certainly not as good looking as yours but I'm OK with that. Once I learn how to tweak this phone more I think this mod will help make it more reliable. Anyway I had fun doing it and so I thought I would post and say thanks for the idea! =)

[crono141]

@Eric_VR4

Not to bust your bubble, but your folded aluminum heat sink is actually worse for heat transfer than a solid piece. Fins on a heat sink help with heat dissipation because all fins are open to the air, increasing the surface area by which heat is lost. In your case, you have several things going on.

First, heat travels through conduction (contact) through the metal. So by having your plate folded, you have actually increased the distance the heat has to travel before it gets in contact with the air. This wouldn't be a problem if you had 3 sheets stacked together, but because there are gaps in your folds, heat has to travel around the gaps. Which leads me to #2.

Second: Those air gaps between your layers actually act as an insulator, slowing the transfer of heat from the bottom plate to the top plate. In winter, we wear layers of clothes to keep warm. This is because heat has trouble crossing the boundary between layers. You have the same thing here.

You might still be running cooler than with the plastic back (since plastic's thermal conductivity is very low), but you could improve your cooling if you eliminated your air gaps between your folds.