INTL-OUTDOOR Direct-Thermal Copper MCPCB Review

It really appears to be a single piece. I’m not entirely certain how they do it, but it’s a great design.

PPtk

Cool! I’ll be snagging a few to try out.

Milling? Kung Fu magic? Optical illusion? Demon worship? I’d put my money on option 1 or 4.

how does the gold bottom affect thermal transfer?
Also have you tried removing it to see if it has the depression like the sinkpad?

Gold has 3/4 the thermal conductivity of copper… on these things it is not thick enough to matter.

Thanks for such a great review. Lets hope the actual production samples (solid slug design) dont change.

Thanks PilotPTK, these will really sell like hot pancakes and I hope Hank orders enough for everyone, the first batch sold really quick. Great to hear it’s of a good design and function.

Thanks for review…

As far as I can see from where Im sitting. The 16mm Sinkpads are the only copper MCPCBs that can be made into 10mm. The ones from intl-outdoor could be turned into 14 it looks.
But the ones from intl-outdoor will offer quite more bang for the buck. Flat underside and that there are space for access soldier to go away from the center is just icing on the cake!
Looks to be a winner! Cant wait to get mine…

Thanks PilotPTK for the review. Also a big rap to IOS in allowing PilotPTK to review this MCPCB before release.

Interesting, thanks for the review.

Will you do direct lumen comparison tests against the SinkPad?

Cheers!

Good to know that the MPCB bond to the copper substrate is solid, the MPCB on the copper stars i got from ledtech.de were VERY delicate.

Thx PilotPTK.

Thanks for the thorough review. And for the great piece of video art, loved that B-) .

Wow! This sounds very good! Looking forward to these being available! Just hope Hank doesn't underestimate the demand for these! Thanks PilotPTK!

-Garry

Thanks for the in-depth review, PPTk! These look to be a great value. Hopefully Hank has a lot of these in stock…

PilotPtk great review. On your thermal test did you compare with the thicker Sinkpad design or were both models set at 1.5mm?

I kept them both at 1.5mm because I wanted to compare apples-apples. I used 20 degrees C as the ambient temperature and put the stars on an ‘infinite’ copper heat-sink. That means that it conducts the heat away at the rate of copper, but it never heats up. I set the thermal generation rate to 8W on the top of the thermal slug.

As you can see, the temperature rise is a little over 7 Degrees C in the SinkPAD Style board and a little over 5 Degrees C in the INTL-OUTDOOR Style Board. Not a massive difference, but not completely insignificant either. It would be more and more pronounced as the number of heat watts went up.

PPtk

Thanks for the tests PPtk, I’m really surprised that that tiny stamp mark on the Sinkpad makes a measurable difference!

It’s not a stamp mark but the line between two separate pieces of metal. My guess as to how they make it would be they machine the top surface leaving the pad high then add the dielectric, and traces, maybe machine the pad again to match, then solder mask, silkscreen and plating. Nice boards but I like PilotPtk’s design better.

What isn’t a stamp mark? The SinkPAD ‘hole’ on the back side? I can assure you that it is - the whole thing is a single piece of metal (copper) that is punched to raise up the thermal pad in the center. This is why there is a matching ‘hole’ in the back side - the copper is displaced so that the SinkPAD Raises up from the top side of the board.

PPtk

Silly me. I thought they pressed a thicker piece of copper in but it’s still continuous with the rest of the base metal?