Yeah, appears that way, so by the time it got to 3A it had already been “cooking” for a bit, even longer at higher currents…so the heat sag wouldn’t be an issue with the readings…nice!
So do you think it’s cost effective to get sinkpad over the cheap FT copper stars and cut out the dielectric layer, or just too much hassle
Thanks for the test. This is very good information. Much more useful than I thought it would be thanks to those additional boards you tested. Now I wonder why the copper board with the dielectric layer performed so well.
Exactly, that is what I wonder as well: the minor difference between the aluminium and copper Sinkpads suggest that the board material is not critical -the bottleneck is closer to the led-, but when a dielectric layer is present, copper and aluminium are miles apart, makes no sense 
. Perhaps the dielectric layer in the copper board has a lower thermal resistance as the dielectric layer in the aluminium board? I scraped that layer in the copper board away: it was not exactly a thin layer, much thicker than I expected actually.
Subbed. Thanks for the review!
Amazing job djozz and thanks for all the effort! You helped me a lot with your charts and tests and I’m sure lot of other people share my thankfulness.
Super tester! Thank you for these tests. That is just so useful and revealing. Thank you thank you thank you :-)
Thank you so much djozz. This is a great effort. The only issue is that you misspelled “.” with “,” on your notes all the way.
Sorry can’t help myself. Just kidding. 
I am actually quite surprised to see copper+dielectric is handling its own up till higher amps. I have a bunch of them from Aliexpress and am still thinking of the best method to punch through to copper layer. And then…
Seems to fit my style. How deep did you need to dig/punch? Got any pics?
The aluminum SinkPads turned out to perform well. Would ordinary aluminum MCPCBs perform the same when its dielectric will be removed just like the copper MCPCBs? :~
Probably…
Copper hype…
And compliments to Djozz for this interesting topic.
Pulsar13 wrote:
Seems to fit my style. How deep did you need to dig/punch? Got any pics?
Deeper than you would think. Those combined layers are thicker than I imagined. It may also be that I am compressing the underlying copper, but I try not to do that. Not sure if I have any lose ones around. If I do, gouge it and post a pic in the next day or two.
I have no idea how it performs. I'm guessing somewhere between the djoss' number 3 and 4 bases.
The problem is, how are you going to solder the LED to the bare aluminum?
Thanks DJozz! Though I think you might have your #’s wrong in the first picture. IIRC, the one with the tc cutout in the dielectric layer is the SinkPad 2. Backed up by the fact that the XM-L2 is of course a newer LED than the XM-L, it would seem odd to me for the “newer” SinkPad 2 (that you have listed as 5) to ignore the XM-L2, while the “older” SinkPad 1 would have it listed on the layer. I’ll pull apart my SupFire M6 to check—I need to lap those puppies anyway.
EDIT: Not really necessary, if you zoom in on the photo, the one you have labeled as 4 has SinkPad II written on the bottom, but listed as SinkPad V1 in the key, and the one you have label as 5 has SinkPad written on the bottom, but is listed as SinkPad V2 in the key.
Not a huge deal though
You are completely correct, I mixed the two alu Sinkpads up in the first picture, luckily just in that picture, not in the tests themselves :-)
I will make a note in the OP.
WOW. Djozz. Once again, FANTASTIC work!
Very useful information to have.
Thank you!
Yeah I’ve been asking myself that same question too. :~
So I think I’ll do the same thing to aluminum MCPCBs what I’ll be doing to my copper MCPCBs - drill a 2.5 mm hole at the dielectric area then fill the hole with copper from an AWG 10 wire which is about 2.58 mm thick. That should do the trick (I hope).
Electroplating
Thank you for this test and the well presented results even a non-tech person like me can understand easily.
I got one question, how good/bad will a 20mm noctigon board perform in comparison to the sinkpads ?
About the same. From our members’ tests, pretty sure we can establish now that the limiting factor is almost always the dielectric layer. Once that factor is taken out, even aluminium base gives performance not too far from Noctigon/Sinkpad.
Thank you Sir ! :face_with_monocle:
According to these high end tests there basically no difference.
