Been working on repairing my broken DRY emitters, but the LEDs are being epoxied and so tight that I couldn’t even move it a bit.
I ended up with heating the heatsink with my soldering iron (did not has any other hotter things…) and used something to hit the LED stars very strongly until they came out. The heatsink ended up with few damaged marks on it.
I think you guys definitely have some good methods to remove them, mind to share here?
Cheers. 
A thin chisel works good. Just pry it up under a little bit a give it a twist until it pops up.
I use a twisting method with needle-nose pliers. Adding heat helps.
Just put the tips in the wire/screw slots of a star and twist firmly until it pops off. Avoid pressing down too hard as that will scratch the pill surface, especially aluminum. This works well on stars that are applied with Fujik, not sure about other thermal adhesives.
Very interesting theme,
I would also like to know method to of removing Artic Alumina from generic P60 drop-in…
Fujik is baby compared to Artic Alumina(acts like it’s welded)…
I did not find good method of removing that thing from P60 drop in so now I put some thermal paste(artic silver) under the star and Artic Alumina under the edges…
U can twist that out with needlenose pliers later…
But I never succeed to remove star glued only with AA. Maybe with some kind of chisel but you can not put it under the 16mm star because P60 has nasty lifted edges…
You are correct, AA will have a much stronger hold, and I have never needed to remove something fastened with it. Someone else may be able to help with that one.
I know back in the day when I used to overclock computer gear to try and crack 3dmark (99max/2000/2001) records and was huge into that community we used to bag up parts (motherboards, video cards, etc) and freeze them for a couple of hours and never had an issue popping the heatsinks/fans off of the chips in order to upgrade their cooling. Pliers, the credit card/flat screw driver pop or twist methods almost always worked. I think out of about 30-40 mods I only had 1 major fubar which was a $600 Creative 64mb Gf2 GTS Ultra which still had the GPU attached to the heatsink after it was removed from the board. The quick and riskier way was to forgo the freezer and use a can of compressed air upside down and spray the chip to freeze it.
As you found out it's not that easy to remove. In my woodworking hobby I use acetone and works like a charm. This only works when the epoxy is adhered to wood. It won't work on plastic or metal.
For a metal heatsink I usually only use some kind of chemical to remove the last little bits after a slew of other methods.
Best method I found is spraying a refrigerant. It will turn brittle and you can easily chip it away. If that doesn't work I will use heat. Once heated, you can scrap the bulk of the softened epoxy off. Lastly the chemical (acetone / nail polish remover / paint thinner) to remove any little bits left behind from the scraping and chiselling.
I modified a needle nose pliers into this shape using a dremel, gave it very sharp wedge on both ends, I slide it on each side of the mpcb and squeeze, mpcb board comes out with no problems!
Does that work if the area where the star goes is recessed? That seems to be problematic (for me). I’ve had some luck using that “BGA” solution from Ebay (from China), but if the star area of the pill is recessed, it’s tough to get any of the solution to get under the star. I’m wondering if your tool (which is pretty neat BTW) would have similar problems?
Well, that exactly is the problem with bisphenol epoxy resins and their strong three-dimensional, cross-linked structures they develop when they cure. On top of that, they are usually quite inert and will hold up quite well against heat, most chemicals and physical force.
Most chemicals, including solvents, will not penetrate into the inert epoxy. As BIGWOOD has already pointed out, acetone works fairly well when dealing with the combination of epoxy and wood, but metals are a whole different thing.
Speaking of metals, they do expand when subjected to heat; and they shrink when cold is present. Epoxy resins just stay the way they are; so that might be a way to battle them - heat with an airgun, then hit it with cold spray - just as if you had to loosen a stubborn 7/16” Whitworth bolt. The metals used for the pill and the emitter star will expand, which will put stress on the epoxy which is staying just the way it is; when being subjected to sudden cold temperatures, its bonding to the metals would suffer even more.
Keep in mind this is just a mere proposal - after all, epoxy paints are widely used on hulls of yachts and other boats; where they have been chosen for their properties to withstand both the heat of the sun all day long on a summer day, and the permanent spray of cold salt water at the same time. In other words - this stuff is tough, indeed.
FYI, Arctic Alumina adhesive can be removed by soaking it in isopropyl alcohol over night. It peels right off most of the time.
And, won’t alcohol and other solvents damage or soften the emitters if left for so long?
And, won’t alcohol and other solvents damage or soften the emitters if left for so long?
Alcohol doesn’t cause problems AFAIK.
Acetone will melt the dome.
I don’t know about other solvents
Thanks for this tip…
I use Isoprophyl alcohol for cleaning de-domed emitter after gasoline bath…
I did not ever think this could help for artic alumina…