Painting a heatsink

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medbot

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I was just wondering if painting a heatsink would decrease its heat absorption or anything like that. Since I wouldn't be painting the copper plate touching the cpu would the paint prevent the heat from transferring off the heatsink, acting as a seal of some kind?
 
not a good idea. think about what happens when you get dust build up on a heatsink. the performance goes down right? i bet paint would be 100 times worse.
 
I remember those Asus boards with heatpipes overheated because people left the plastic seal on.
 
medbot said:
I was just wondering if painting a heatsink would decrease its heat absorption or anything like that. Since I wouldn't be painting the copper plate touching the cpu would the paint prevent the heat from transferring off the heatsink, acting as a seal of some kind?
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Go ahead, just don't paint the part that contacts the CPU. In theory it'll lower your cooling performance slightly, but a thin layer can't be too bad in reality.
 
It depends on the thickness of the coat, and the material the paint is made out of.

Remember, that most paints will, in fact, be quite great at insulating heat. Chalkboard and Magnetic paint (with suspended metal particles) will transfer heat much better than a thick enamel.

Car paint, in thin-thin coats won't hurt either. Consider that MOST retail Radiators come painted... Even the inside of the fins are covered with at least 50% Paint.

If your HSF is Aluminum, I highly recommend anodizing it. Anodizing it will have very little impact on it's thermal ability, and produces nice metallic shades. It can even be done in your own home if you can get your hands on some sulfuric acid (I highly recommend doing it at home as it's ALOT of fun :)).

Would I do this? No... But can you? Maybe?
 
Heatsinks are made of aluminum because it transfers heat effectively....seems to me if you cover up the metal, the heat won't be able to transfer very good, it'll be trapped under the paint.

Besides that, it would be a pain in the ass to get a good coat of paint on a finned heatsink.
 
i plan to paint the top fin of my sythe ninja black then hand paint some symbols on it.

even if you paint a normal heatsink chaces are you only need to paint the sides of it. no one will see the inside of it and that is where all the thermal transfer is takeing place.
 
Just a thought, what about powder coating the heatsinks?? You'd be able to get an even coat, but I am not sure if it would inhibit the thermal tranfer between the mating surfaces. I always thought the powder coating looked great on the American Choppers, but they aren't trying to cool anything either... Just food for thought
 
Heatsinks are made of aluminum because it transfers heat effectively
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Naw, heatsinks are made of Aluminum because it's cheap and light ;).

Painting the top fin of the Ninja is a really cool idea... It's like, less than 2% of the cooling capacity of the entire thing...
 
Smoove910 said:
Just a thought, what about powder coating the heatsinks?? You'd be able to get an even coat, but I am not sure if it would inhibit the thermal tranfer between the mating surfaces. I always thought the powder coating looked great on the American Choppers, but they aren't trying to cool anything either... Just food for thought
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powder coating will diminish the cooling as well. The thing thats good about powder coating is that it can withstand very high temps, which is why they use it automotive parts. The only thing that can be done to AL is to anodize it, that wont effect the cooling of it at all.
 
gesicht said:
i plan to paint the top fin of my sythe ninja black then hand paint some symbols on it.

even if you paint a normal heatsink chaces are you only need to paint the sides of it. no one will see the inside of it and that is where all the thermal transfer is takeing place.
Click to expand...

That's actually similar to what I was thinking, I have the ninja and I thought the top layer could benifit from a different color. I like the idea of anondizing it to keep the metallic look but that sounds like more work than I care to do. Thanks guys
 
medbot said:
I was just wondering if painting a heatsink would decrease its heat absorption or anything like that. Since I wouldn't be painting the copper plate touching the cpu would the paint prevent the heat from transferring off the heatsink, acting as a seal of some kind?
Click to expand...

Yes it will hold in heat and not transfer it wother a crap. Skip the paint, you will not regret it.
 
Anodizing is quite a simple process really...

Just dilute some sulfuric acid to 30% (3:7 parts water)... And make a big "pad" of aluminum foil. Attach wires to the foil and place it in the bottom of your sulfuric acid bucket... Bring the wire out. Make sure all the wires in this entire setup are made of aluminum :). Suspend the part you want to anodize with more aluminum wire (make sure the wire is touching something that you want to be coloured) and attach both wires to a battery charger... Set it to 12v (with at least 5amps).

Come back in 20 minutes, turn off the charger (there should be lots of bubbles around) and take out the piece. Wash it in COLD WATER. Wash it well. Now, put some dye (strong concentration) powder into some almost boiling water (you want it about 60'c) and place the part you want coloured in. It will soak up the colour. Once the piece of aluminum reaches a certain temperature, it will stop absorbing colour, so make sure you keep your warm dye solution from boiling.

Easy! No?
 
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