SLi_dog

Just thought I'd share some of the information I've got from lapping a few heat sinks. Hope you find it useful.


If you're reading this guide you probably already know the benefits of lapping a heat sink but I'll go over it anyway.

Most heat sinks that you buy these days have a rather rough base on them. They are mostly flat, but not always, so by lapping them you get the benefit of a smoother surface resulting in better heat transfer, as well as making sure that your surface is flat.

The heat sink I'll be using in this guide is a good example. This is what it looked like straight out of the box.





It looks ok but have a look at what happens to the themal paste when mounted.





You'll notice that it's thicker at the sides because the base of the heat sink is not flat.




Lapping


You'll need:
A heatsink, CPU, etc.
Some wet-dry sandpaper of 200, 400, 800, 1200 and 2000 grit.
A flat glass surface to work on.
A roll of duct tape.
An old rag.
A couple of hours of time.







Not essential but recommended:
A sheet of grid paper to check the flatness.
Be within range of a television, radio, etc for entertainment while your doing it.







Sandpaper

You need some higher grade stuff than normal sandpaper. Some hardware stores might not stock the 2000 grit so your best bet is to phone around and find out who has what. Try automotive supply shops or specialist carpentry stores as they might have some. If you can't find 2000 grit, just get as near to that as you can.

The prices that I paid ranged from 60 cents a sheet for the 400 grit up to $1.20 a sheet for the 2000 grit. I'd recommend getting around one or two sheets each of the 200, 400 and 600 grit as they last a while, 2 sheets of the 800 and 1200 grit, and 3 sheets of the 2000 grit stuff.

NOTE: If you're only going to lap a CPU then you probably don't need the 200 grit sand paper and probaly only 1 sheet of each because the CPU IHS covers are made from soft metal compared to heat sinks.







Secure the sheet down with tape. The rougher grade sandpaper will require duct tape but with the finer stuff like 1200 grit you can just use normal sticktape. As you can kind of see in this picture, I'm using an old mirror as the glass base.







Lapping Technique

Place the surface to be lapped onto the sand paper and using both hands, gradually start to move the heat sink in a figure eight pattern. It may be difficult at first, particularly with the rougher grade paper, but it should become a steady flow soon enough. Make sure you keep the base flat to the surface and try to avoid letting the heat sink "shudder" across the paper. After a while you should start to see a pattern like this one emerge.





When you get a build up like this it's best to wipe the sand paper clean with an old rag. Just make sure that there is no debri on the paper before you start sanding again.




After a while the heat sink should start to slide easily as the sandpaper begins to wear out. You will also find that as this happens, the heat sink base will begin to smooth out. This is a good oportunity to take your gridded paper or a something similar (newspaper is good) and check your results so far.


600 grit surface - you can see how the edges still have the original surface texture indicating how uneven the surface was from the manufacturer.





600 grit reflection





800 grit surface





800 grit reflection





1200 grit surface





1200 grit reflection






And here is the finished product. You can see it's still not perfectly flat by the original surface showing on one of the edges but it's as flat as it's going to get without using a belt sander.


2000 grit surface





2000 grit reflection





If you have any questions just ask.

SLi_dog

If you thought this was worth reading, please feel free to Digg it.

Cheers,

SLi_dog / James

JAFFA

Yeah mate that's spot on, wouldn't change a thing there.

Only point I could possibly add is that for those that find it hard to get hold of high grit sandpaper (I know I do) to try automotive shops as the fine grit stuff is used a lot for car paint and bodywork finishing.

Good work fella!!!

eva2000

Wow nice.. lapping just takes so long to do just for a core 2 cpu IHS.. can't imagine how long for a large heatsink heh.

SLi_dog

Thanks guys,
Glad you like it.


eva, I think heat sinks are made of a tougher copper alloy than that used for IHS which means they do take alot longer to do. That's why I suggested doing it in front of the TV .
You see the wooden board that I use? I do that so I can sit in the air-con watching TV and still have a stable surface to work on

NiSMo

VERY impressive guide there dude... just wat i was after

thanx for that! keep up the good work dude!

T_M

Why not post a pic of the TIM spread after the lapping?

Jammer

Nice work Jamie!