Waterproof Heat Sink?

Hi

Any tips or tricks to heat-sink a waterproof LED strip or other LED light?

thx

You could glue the led strip to metal (heatsink) strip with thermal adhesive such as Artic Alumina

I suppose he have ip67 strip (which has transparent plastic tube around strip).

do not bother, heatsinks do not do any good for strips. the heat bottle neck is between traces and plastic base. heatsink would be like putting a plastic bag over a persons head, but opening the window to let more air in the room.

as for other leds, waterproofing heatsink is the least of your problems, heatsinks are usually chinks of aluminum or copper, either one is fine underwater. it is the rest components that need waterproofing, and depending of the light, there maybe many ways to do so.

we would be able to better help you if you asked right questions.

hi

thx for replies!

I could have asked:
“Any tips to waterproof an LED strip, while allowing heat to escape?”

Does that help?

thx

waterproof LED strips are often with adhesive tape, glue it to something and it will heat up less

but still you cant overdrive such a LED strip, as the LEDs itself are the bottleneck

And then disposing of the body is such a chore…

not really, it only creates more questions, what kind of strip do you have, there are few kinds, some are ok as far as heat removal, but most are horrible, due to faulty design, you really can not do anything to better remove heat. the only solution with those is not to heat them up in a first place, i have done it many times and it works a lot better than heat sinks, actually i should say it just works, heat sinks do not, for most strips. drop voltage from 12 to 9,and heat will not be an issue, brightness will drop, compensate it by doubling amount of strips. as for waterproofing, just get waterproof tape, “not the one that is a” none waterproof tape in flat silicone tube”:https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0765/0119/products/riogrande-hp-strip-tn.jpg?v=1467910488, i mean you could use that one, but it complicates things if you need to trim it. i always use strips that are molded in clear plastic

Is your strip using 2835 LEDs? 2835 has a better heatsink and heat dissipation design than older types like 3528 or 5050.

great info.

i have not selected the strip yet.
which ones have the *best *heat removal?
which the worst?

i don’t understand that.

thx!

some strips are made waterproof by using flat silicone tube with none waterproof strip inside. others have top of the tape covered with silicone. click on links in my post there are pics of those strips.
as far as a tape with good heat transfer, i know of only 1, ( but there may be more that i do not know about that is why i said some). but it is not flexible strip, not waterproof either, and a lot more expensive. luxstrip, it has aluminum base and i can use optics with it. it uses cree xp\xt leds, or luxeon.
what are you building? i have build many projects with strips, from closet lights, to dog harness. and others on this forum used strips as well, tell us what you want to build and we can recommend right strip

me and i’m sure many others here used strips in many applications, wasted a lot of time and strips to see what works and what does not, so you do not have to.

Many thanks, that’s great info!
optics?

I will def ask more questions.
thx for help!

cheers