Posts by bleep42

OK, I've been looking at a nice simple way of doing this, if you get some of these link to heatsinks when you stack two together, so the fins mesh, they are 11.7mm high, in my Slice, they just touch the top of the case when sitting on top of the CPU.
You can then use some of this link to thermal sticky tape to stick one heat sink to the CPU and another to the lid, the fact that the fins are meshed together, all be it not tight, will help the CPU run much cooler, you will need to be carefull when removing and replacing the lid, to make sure you don't move the lid sideways, before the fins are no longer meshed. You could probably even put some thick heat sink goo between the fins so that when you put the lid on the thermal contact between the two sets of fins will be better, but it might get messy and I doubt it'll make a huge difference.
Using this set up, with the heat sink just ballanced on the CPU (not stuck to CPU or lid) I now get tempreatures of 49C CPU 29C case, so the CPU is 6C cooler than my previous heat sink effort; this is while playing wma music files, with the Spectrum visulisation, which provokes 100% CPU usage. Without any heat sink I get CPU 70C.
Photo of Slice with heat sink.
Regards, Kevin.

Quote from MikeBuzz

I am using the following at the moment

SC14059

Its seems to have fixed the temp hitting 80C while updating the library, but i am still not happy with the temps i am getting, just sitting idle its hitting 57C

Hi Mike,

Yes the problem with a small heatsink is that you are allowing a bit more heat to escape from the CPU, but it's still trapped inside the case, to get significantly better cooling you need the heat sink to touch the case, so an aluminium heat sink like that, but taller, so you can file the top of it, to make it just touch the top of the case, when you screw it together.
The way I did it, was to balance the heat sink on the cpu and place the lid on, then I kept shortening the heat sink, making sure it was flat, until the lid was just being raised by a fraction of a mm, such that when I tightened the screws it would be just, fractionally pinched (mine is 12mm high, on a CM1). Once you've got it right, apply heat sink goo, and put together. I just rely on the pinch, knowing that the Slice is not going to be moved around, so moving the heat sink, but you could apply a bit of araldite, round it's edge, after coating the top with heatsink compound, like gordon has, to hold it to the lid.
Good luck,
Kevin.

Quote from g7ruh

Kevin, I suspect you are correct. My main concern for wanting a 'more exact' measurement is the need to ensure there is no mechanical strain on the CPU which could cause the solder joints to fracture during hot / cold cycling as the assembly expands and contracts. (These days manufacturing HAS to use the lead-free solder, which in my experience, is much less "flexible" than the good old lead-based stuff, and is much more likely to fracture or develop a 'dry joint'. Under a microscope lead-free solder has a much more crystaline structure than the good old stuff).

The Five Ninjas may well have some prototype Slice cases which can be cut e.g. half way across the CPU to determine the thickness more accurately and then, if we are lucky and ask nicely (pretty please ), may be able to provide a CM3 and heatsink for the upgrade.

A sticky thermal transfer pad would also work to help reduce mechanical strain, depending on the width of the gap, but not as efficient as a lump of copper and good quality heat sink compound.

Another thought: have you a hard drive installed in the case? If so have you monitored the HD temperature after your Slice has been running hard for a while? I don't push my Slice hard, I only use it for audio playback and lower resolution video at present.

Roger

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Hi Roger,
I do have a disk installed, the case only gets very slightly warm, (28C top of case, with CPU at 55C) so I don't forsee any heat related problems, the case is a big metal sink and radiator.
You need to remember that the CPU is on a board, which is slotted into a memory style connector, when you put the board in, it is inserted in the socket at an angle, say 30Deg to the main circuit board and then pressed down until it clicks in place, approximately parallel with the main circuit board, (see Gordons photo) so there is quite a lot of up/down 'spring' in the CM board, which will easily take up any thermal expansion, it will mean you can't make the heat sink to CPU thermal connection very tight, just touching, with thermal paste as a buffer, will be the way to go.
Regards, Kevin.

I've already done something similar to this for my current Slice, so I can over clock it a bit.
I used a standard small square heat sink that I trimmed and filed to fit between the chip and the lid, unfortunately, because the CM1 has the memory stacked on top, I suspect that the gap between chip and lid will change on CM3.
Regards, Kevin.

Hi Chewitt,
I've successufly installed your LibreELEC-Slice.arm-7.90.007.tar by copying it into the update directory on the Slice.

All seems to be working ok at the moment thanks, including analogue audio, I've even got audioswitcher going so it automatically switches between HDMI audio for video and analogue audio for music files. I'll keep using it for the moment and report back.

Thanks for your work on this,
Kevin.