Anybody here have luck making their own thermal glue?
I had some .05 micron aluminum oxide sitting around.
I mixed a some with 30min epoxy. About a 1:1 ratio.
It forms a nice thick paste, and after about 25 minutes, seems to be curing properly.
I’m testing it out on a simple fixed lightning project using some old xpg2 on 20mm stars.
Think It’ll work?
I’ll report back later after some testing.
In the meantime, what have you tried and how has it worked out?
One thing you might want to be mindful that some thermal compounds are in fact dielectric.
Could you test your compound for electrical continuity?
Good call. I had thought about doing that, but forgot to check.
It’s fully cured now, so I will check and report back.
I checked for continuity at several locations.
No continuity anywhere.
For those curious, I used 2ton Devcon 2 part epoxy, which is 30 minute working time.
I bought the .05 micron aluminum oxide about 15 years ago from myrockhound.com
I’ll let you guys know how it works out.
My favourite epoxy JB Weld (regular, steel filled) is said to be electrically insulating, but according to this paper has thermal conductivity of some 7.5 W/(m×K) which I think is similar to titanium alloys and some low-end stainless steel.
I recently replaced burnt out leds on a couple of exterior light fixtures attached to my house. The MCPCBs were attached to heat sinks with screws. I’m glad they didn’t use permanent epoxy! 