I have been building a NTSC GPU using an SX52 (protoboard).  I have been running at 50Mhz and the chip gets a little warm.  We brought this up before but I want to push it to 80Mhz and put a heatsink.  Well, until I can buy an official heatsink with some thermal grease, I decided to put a penny on the SX52!!!  Yeah, I just put it right on.  I made sure the penny didn't touch any pins and I am careful not to move the penny.

It seems to be working...lol
The penny is pretty hot.  So, I wonder how effective is this temporary fix?  Or, could I just get some thermal grease and continue to use pennies until the final project?  yes, I am cheap.  hehehe thanks!

Why not using thermal grease together with a penny! As the surface of the penny is slightly uneven, the grease will reduce the so-called "thermal resistance" between the SX52 and the penny. Instead of a penny, you might consider using a small piece of sheet copper, bent like a U. In this case, I would use some thermal glue to attach it to the SX.

You could even splurge and use a dime.  Beter thermal transfer with the sliver cladding.  Or would this be offset by the lack of mass relative to a penny?

Remember a penny really isnt copper anymore..mostly zinc I believe. U might want to check the thermal properties of zinc.

These might me usable:

http://www.allelectronics.com/cgi-bin/category.cgi?category=270&item=HS-125&type=store need some type of heat conductive glue to attach, was thing of getting a few myself.

[Quoting: "Mike Cook"]These might be usable:

http://www.allelectronics.com/cgi-bin/category.cgi?category=270&item=HS-125&type=store
need some type of heat conductive glue to attach, was thinking of getting a few myself.

Mike

But for prototyping, the penny goes a long way!  hahaha happy thanksgiving everyone!

I went into a local computer store look for some printer ink today and passed by their customized computer components.

There I saw very tiny heat sinks in day-glow blue aluminum.  They seem to be for cooling your RAM chips, so they come in sets for about $5USD [$150 Taiwan dollars].

I looks like one would fit nicely atop the SX-48 or SX-52 and create quite a bit of convection.  They are about 3/8 inch square and the same in height with 8 to 10 fins.

A coule hours ago I was testing some code on a project and things starting heating up, literally. Amongst the rats nest of jumper wires on my SX tech board, I managed to acccidently wire up not 1, not 2, but 3 short circuits. It didn't take long before the smell of the rosting chip filled the air. The SX got so hot it sizzled when I licked my finger and touched it. After correcting my wiring 'whoops' everything was working fine. Amazingly the sx seeming to have come out unscathed. It made me think about this thread.

I just happened to have some change sitting on my desk and I couldn't stop thinking about using a penny for a heatsink, not that I really need one. Use a Dremel (or simular type tool) smooth one side of the penny. This would increase the contact area between the SX and the penny to improve heat transfer, even if you do end up using thermal grease. I'm guessing the side with Lincolns face would require the least amount of work. His head looks bigger than the monument, but there is less lettering. Depending on which speed you run the Dremel, you could probably save 5 or 10 seconds of work. You might as well be lazy if you're going to be cheap  :smilewinkgrin: . Now take some scrap wire and solder it to the monument side of the penny to make fins. I think a multi-strand wire would be better than a solid core. You could spread the individual strands out and each would give a greater surface area over the solid core.

Wouldn't the foil from a stick of gum be even cheaper & give more surface area?

Either that or some real aluminum foil.  You could flatten it really smooth...just make sure it doesn't touch any of the pins.