Anyone here familiar with welding or soldering Aluminum ?

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Allan74

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May 15, 2019
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Why ?
Heatsink 'stacking' or custom LARGE passive heatsink, using original device heatsink as a base to weld or solder more material to....because I don't own a CNC.

What ?

What would be the best welding rod/paste/solder to permanently 'join' aluminum blocks together that maintains near transparent heat conductivity from 1 piece to the newly joined ?

Who ?
People who dislike <80mm high speed fan noise.

Where ?
At your Mom's house.....quit asking so many damn questions....LOL


All levity aside, I appreciate anyone taking the time to read and or contemplate my situation.
thanks,
Allan
 

abq

Active Member
May 23, 2015
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Great question, I am interested in same subject. Lots of DIY & maker space folks here. Hopefully someone here has experience & advice to share.
 

kapone

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May 23, 2015
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It is FAR FAR easier and most likely cheaper (if you value your time) to just buy a larger heatsink that will fit OOTB, or with minor changes.

I get the whole DIY aspect of it, don't get me wrong, I tinker with stuff all the time as well. But there are a few things I won't **ck with. Power supplies and heatsinks. The former can kill you and the latter can kill your equipment. What else is left?? :)
 

Allan74

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May 15, 2019
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It is FAR FAR easier and most likely cheaper (if you value your time) to just buy a larger heatsink that will fit OOTB, or with minor changes.
After giving AliExpress a few mins of my time with your suggestion, it seems that I found a few candidates.

I simply want to add something better onto a couple of LSI cards and found that with my 30mm width constraint, M.2 DIY heatsinks seem to fit the bill with simple re-drilling of the 2 mount points required, much easier than welding.
 
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Allan74

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May 15, 2019
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I found a copper heatsink with the correct fin orientation that will allow me to make 2 pieces for 2 cards from it. It will maintain the original width, so not interfering with battery or buzzer and simply be 2x taller off the card and be nearly the height of the mounting bracket....and copper.

After cutting it to size, I can drill and tap the bottom of it's thick plate and rear/back fasten with screws rather than front/top fasten with plugs.

This should be a pretty decent improvement over the stock unit and as long as I maintain the overall height of the mounting bracket, I won't have any clearance problems.

LSI-HS.jpg
 
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kapone

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May 23, 2015
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@Allan74 - While that's good...I have to admit, I have NEVER had LSI HBAs fail/reduce performance due to heat/heatsink related issues with the stock heatsink. I'll admit though that I use them in server chassis (which have mid-lane fans, albeit slowed down quite a bit), so if you're using them in a different scenario, you may be absolutely right.
 

Allan74

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May 15, 2019
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I should clarify, it's a 2108 based HW RAID card and not an HBA.
I've got 1 setup in a tower and just getting tired of having it knock itself offline when it overheats during some transfers and having to resort to cripple it, running it in write-through to keep it happy. I have a dedicated fan blowing at the card, but depending on the phases of the moon, seasons and if Mars is in retrograde, still seeing the random once or so per month, offline status mid file transfer.

I initially thought it was a card problem, switched for an identical replacement from my collection, only to see the exact same thing happen.

I also thought that it could be a RAID Cache problem, until I temp checked the heatsink and put 2+2 together. Anyone that recalls some of my elementary level posts and questions may remember that I had asked about the possibility of running the card in write-through, but employing an SSD and CacheCade to remove the onboard cache from the equation, but was quickly told that "it doesn't work that way".....
 
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Whaaat

Active Member
Jan 31, 2020
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I should clarify, it's a 2108 based HW RAID card and not an HBA
I'm not sure about original heatsink of 2108, but I found that IBM's ServeRAID M5110 heatsink has exactly the same distance between the mounting holes as 45mm fan. Original plastic pins were replaced with two M3 screws and nuts on the other side of pcb. 12v fan working from 5v is whisper quiet and the temperature drop is huge.

LSI_fan.jpg
 
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Allan74

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May 15, 2019
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I found that IBM's ServeRAID M5110 heatsink has exactly the same distance between the mounting holes as 45mm fan
I think most the the heatsinks on my cards, including the model you pictured are pretty much the same, so I will give it a shot.