Are You On Pot????? (potting and heatsinking with epoxy and silicon carbide)

That sounds like you found the perfect stuff for potting, except for the dull colour: does JB-Weld come in fashionable colours as well? :-D

(I live in that part of the world that struggles to cope with the unavailabilty of JB Weld)

No JB Weld? How on earth do you ever fix cars, motorcycles and snowmobiles? :wink:

On the colors that's a good idea you could make a million bucks. Kinda like duct tape used to only come in grey. Between duct tape, JB weld and a hammer you can fix anything.

I'm a mad potter too 18650. Even if it just pulls out a few degree, they're the most important ones to get out. Just my opinion which may not be based on fact.

I’ve yet to start potting, considered it but I just mess with the FW to much. One thing I’m thinking about is finding a tiny 5 pin M/F connector and start adding those to my lights I need to reflash a lot, then I could pot them but still be able to flash, just leave the head of the connector sticking out of the pot.

I’ve seen someone pot a driver entirely with Fujik. Would it even benefit from that stuff?

I like the idea of filling in gaps to maximise heat efficiency, although it means that you are no longer able to replace or make adjustments to the potted driver.

anything conducts heat better than air, so Fujik will help. But while you're at it it doesn't harm to use something better and this recipe sounds good.

Nah. But I´ve used it before but based on ordinary silicone from the hardware store and mixed in lots of the silicon carbide dust you also use.

Gives you a few hours to work with it. And it mixes quite well. I put a few drops of silicone oil in it to make the mixing better. Also seemed to keep the air out of it better.

This compound can be remowed btw. If you know you might remove it later you can spray the driver and cavity in a thin film of silicone oil before applying it. Then it is quite easy to get out.

try “depleted fujik”. spread it thinly on paper and let the paper absorb the silicone oil. scrape it off then spread again on another sheet. the consistency of putty

well there’s still convection and radiation of heat. so styrofoam is worse than air

Ledsmoke wrote:

Nah. But I´ve used it before but based on ordinary silicone from the hardware store and mixed in lots of the silicon carbide dust you also use.

Gives you a few hours to work with it. And it mixes quite well. I put a few drops of silicone oil in it to make the mixing better. Also seemed to keep the air out of it better.

This compound can be remowed btw. If you know you might remove it later you can spray the driver and cavity in a thin film of silicone oil before applying it. Then it is quite easy to get out.

Great tip. I will be trying this. I've just been using my potting recipe that I have a thread on. It's great because there is not curing time, but it's a hassle to remove.

Thanks for sharing.

Do you, or anyone know of a good place to buy suitable silicon carbide with free shipping?

Here in the USA it's almost always available domestically on ebay. Hopefully, you will have the same there in Norway.

I compacted a pure copper scrubber in my 15 led light. It does seem to help.

What grit of silicon carbide powder do you guys use?

I use one that is a mix of like 220 and 4xx. I have some 1500, but I don't use it because it goes airborne easily and I don't want to inhale it.

I noticed reading up on Arctic silver 5 that they actually use different grits in their mix. I’ll be ordering more silicon carbide soon in various grits. Makes sense to mix the smaller particles with some larger depending on what you are using it for.

Then there is this……http://www.pflexpro.com/ At the top of his page Flashlight 101, then to the left the list “Potting”

http://www.pflexpro.com/

Crazy question…would sensor safe RTV or silicon and the above silicon carbide make a softer easier to remove potting for say drivers in case you needed to “peel it off”