Heatsinks for SIDs

[fussylizard]

In case others are interested, I found some heatsinks for 28-pin DIPs that work perfectly on SIDs.  They are Aavid Thermalloy part #580600B00000G (http://www.aavidthermalloy.com/cgi-bin/stdisp.pl?Pnum=580600b00000g#).  They are nonstock at Mouser and Digikey but I did find them in stock at http://www.electronicprecepts.com/.  It is US-based and I have no idea if they ship internationally, but I called them, payed for them by credit card, and they arrived a few days later.  IIRC they were about $1.50 plus shipping.  I got thermal paste at a local computer shop since Electronic Precepts only sells it by the bucketfull.

One thing to point out is that on the MB-6582 the SIDs are so close together that the fins of the heat sinks touch.  I ended up bending the fins up a little with pliers to prevent this.  The metal or maybe the coating on it made a little cracking noise for each fin I bent, but it seems fine.  I'm not sure what affect this has on the heat dissipation but at any rate I feel a lot better knowing my SIDs have heat sinks since they 6582s were getting pretty hot and they only use 9V.  6581s probably would be worse given the 12V supply they need.

If you are using a standalone SID module I would imagine these heatsinks would fit fine but I don't have a SID module so I can't guarantee it won't hit other components.  You could always stack IC sockets or bend fins to gain clearance if that is a problem.

The first pic shows the unbent heatsink on the right, and the bent one on the left.  I only had to bend every-other fin.  You can see the white-ish crack lines at the base of each fin I bent.

The second pic shows the heatsink attached to a SID.  The heatsinks use an interesting clip-like system to attach.  From top to bottom on the left I have the top of the heat sink, some thermal paste, the SID, the bottom of the heatsink, and an IC socket.  The bottom part of the heatsink slipped between the bottom of the SID and the top of the socket perfectly.  I used two IC sockets per SID per Wilba's advice (one soldered to the PCB, one attached to the SID and left there as shown here).  I had to pry the SID up slightly from the socket to allow the heatsink to slip in.  I just put a thin coat of thermal paste on top of each SID (don't overdo it!) and slid the heatsink on while holding it open (to prevent it from scraping off all the thermal paste).

The third pic shows all 8 heatsinks installed on the MB-6582 base board.  It's a tight fit even after bending the fins, but it all fits after bending the fins.

Edited December 21, 2009 by fussylizard

[Flying Panther]

I had to look for 2 minutes before figuring out that there's also a part of the heatsink under the SID, but now I get the system. ;) Looks pretty decent, and may also cool well because air can flow 'through' the hole in the heatsink.

[fussylizard]

I had to look for 2 minutes before figuring out that there's also a part of the heatsink under the SID, but now I get the system. ;) Looks pretty decent, and may also cool well because air can flow 'through' the hole in the heatsink.

LOL, I completely understand.  It took me a bit to get my head around it when I was looking at it on the Aavid site.  There is also a little lip on the part of the heatsink that sits on the top edge of the chip (barely visible at the top right edge of the chip in the picture) to prevent the heat sink from sliding off on its own.  So no screws or difficult to install clips at all.  Pretty clever.

[pingosimon]

Nice find!  Seems like a super obscure thing to come across.

How necessary/useful is it, though?  Has anyone's SID chips stopped working due to heat?

[Wilba]

To be honest, I wouldn't bother with heatsinks on 8580R5 or 6582A, they just don't get hot, only warm. (Well, mine don't get hot enough, perhaps others do).

6581 on the other hand are hot little buggers and do get hot... In one model of C64 (a beige one I expected to contain an 8580R5)... a big piece of folded sheet metal surrounded a few of the ICs including a 6581R4AR and made contact with some conductive silicon goo. Perhaps the very high failure rate of 6581 SIDs when salvaged from the brown breadbox C64s is partly due to them running hot with no heatsinks.

I do like these heatsinks, though... I originally planned to stick on some nice copper finned ones meant for PC memory but went off the idea of (semi-)permanent gluing onto rare 6582A (that was before I found the stash of 4000+). So removable heatsinks are cool. It can't hurt and can only help prolong the life of your SIDs, but certainly isn't required, much like the 40mm fan is not required on the MB-6582.

[fussylizard]

My 6582s (from Wilba) were getting hot enough to where I couldn't keep my finger on them.  I don't know if I would have gotten burned but it was hot enough I didn't want to find out.  I also have a fan and cut vent slits which will help.

I thought about trying to use heat sinks for CPUs or something and gluing them, but when I found these I figured I'd give them a shot and they worked great.

[Matrix12x]

This is a "cool" idea.  ;)

Anytime you can pull heat from an IC it is a good thing. It will also help reliability long term. I am definitely going to order some.

[Wilba]

If anyone's ordering some, can they add some extra for me? ;)

Send me a PM... I wouldn't mind getting a few samples of other heatsinks from that store.

[m00dawg]

Thought I'd share my experiences with these sinks since I recently got my MB-6582 to the point at which it's (mostly) function. They appear to work very well. I hooked my temperature probe to the top of the heatsink of SIDs on channel 1. I then played some SID tunes (mostly songs from the MetalWarrior games) for a good 45 minutes. Temperature at the top of the heatsink was 38C, though it took around 30 minutes to get there. Ambient temperature was around 25C or so. This was without the cooling fan, so I have a feeling adding that should make a noticeable difference as well.

Even without a fan, this is a nice improvement since, without any heatsink on them, I noticed that the 6582a's seemed to be almost uncomfortably warm to the touch, though I can't remember what the temperature reading off the chip directly was the last time I checked as it was some time ago.

It would be interesting to see what the temperature of the chip itself was with the heatsinks in use but I'd say it's a pretty good result. I would definitely recommend these. The only other downside, apart from having to bend the fins so that they fit, is the clip is a bit wide does not fit in to the slit in the DIP sockets I have. That means it could be possible for the clip to contact one of the pins of the socket, although it would take quite a jolt for that to happen (ie, you'd have to drop your precious MB-6852 most likely - and if you did that, you might have other problems).

[Smithy]

Slight off-topic but,

how is your header cabling system treating you now fussy?

Do you find it in anyway awkward or anything

Cheers.

[m00dawg]

Slight off-topic but,

how is your header cabling system treating you now fussy?

Do you find it in anyway awkward or anything

I tried a few different solutions, none of which mirrored Wilba's suggestions perfectly. I used cabling that was close, but not quite the same spec as Wilba recommended and didn't bend the soldered ends properly. Stress after frequent opening and closing caused them to break. The other issue that might have avoided that was to test the mainboard more before diving into the control surface. The solution I am using now is just individual wires. This way I can at least fix a single wire without too much trouble.

Back to the topic at hand, I found that 38C is about as hot as things were going to get. After playing SIDs for probably two hours it never got above 38C. I also noticed that the temperature is basically the same no matter whether or not something is playing through the SIDs or not.

[fussylizard]

Slight off-topic but,

how is your header cabling system treating you now fussy?

Do you find it in anyway awkward or anything

Cheers.

I assume you're referring to the connection between the control surface and base PCB, right?  It's working great, no problems or complaints.  It doesn't look as pretty as Wilba's though, but it is detachable.  For the record I used right-angle male SIL headers on the top side of the control surface PCB and soldered ribbon cables to the bottom side of the base PCB.  Female SIL headers are attached to the other ends of the ribbon cables to mate with the right-angle headers.  It's a bit of a tight fit but no problems.  Just don't make the ribbon cables any longer than necessary since all that cable gets squeezed when the case is closed.

There's a picture of it here (before I put the female pins in the plastic headers): http://www.midibox.org/forum/index.php/topic,13492.msg116476.html#msg116476

I didn't have 8-pin female housings (the black plastic things the crimp pins fit into) for a while so I used the boards without them and surprisingly had no problems with shorts, even with the case closed (the crimp pins fit very snugly).

I used ribbon cable and crimp pins/housings from SmashTV.  (I used the older gray ribbon cable he used to sell, not the newer multicolored kind but I'm sure the newer stuff would work fine.)

I keep trying to convince m00dawg to do it this way but he's having too much fun debugging broken wires. :-)  I opened and closed mine a zillion times and didn't have any problems (I guess the ribbon cable I used is more flexible than what he used).

[m00dawg]

I keep trying to convince m00dawg to do it this way but he's having too much fun debugging broken wires. :-)  I opened and closed mine a zillion times and didn't have any problems (I guess the ribbon cable I used is more flexible than what he used).

:) I just don't want to have to desolder all those cables again :) I am having trouble getting some of the broken wire ends out of the holes and it would just be a huge huge pain over just fixing the broken wires. The wires end up breaking simply because I measured too short it seems. So I just put a longer wire there and seems to do the trick.

Besides, I still haven't figured out a good way to strip all that ribbon cable to the same length. If I could do that, it probably would be easier to manage.

[fussylizard]

Besides, I still haven't figured out a good way to strip all that ribbon cable to the same length. If I could do that, it probably would be easier to manage.

All I do is use an X-Acto knife followed by pulling with my fingers to separate the wires and expose about 3/4".  Then I just use handheld wire strippers to strip off 1/8" - 1/4" each wire and that's it.  Not a fancy wire stripper, just a cheap one that works like wire cutters with small holes for each wire gauge.  If you wanted to get fancy I suppose you could cut the inner wires of the ribbon slightly shorter than the outer wires so everything lines up perfectly when soldered (since the middle wires don't have as far to reach as the outer wires when soldered to the board) but it's never been an issue so I don't bother.

I completely understand not wanting to unsolder all those wires though. :-)

[pingosimon]

Does anyone know where the pictures of the installed heatsinks went? I'm thinking about getting some.

I've never used a heatsink before. Is thermal paste required? Is it possible to wipe it off the SID later if I want to? Is there a certain type that I need to use?

[nILS]

They probably got lost during the forum migration or were hosted externally and vanished. Thermal paste makes for an even better heat transport from the SID to the heatsink is not required though. Generally heatsinks for SIDs aren't really required.

[Wilba]

Fixed attached images in first post.

[pingosimon]

Wilba, the attachments seem to be gone.

Generally heatsinks for SIDs aren't really required.

I'd hate for mine to be the exceptions, though! I also plan on doing some 6581 projects once I use all the 8580s on MB-6582s.

[Wilba]

Sorry, they were there, then they weren't... this new forum stuffed up some attachments and even fixing the problem sometimes leads to losses. Damn.

Maybe fussylizard can add them back again if he sees this :)

[fussylizard]

Just re-posted the pictures to the first post in this thread.

To maximize heat transfer you should put a little heat sink compound on top of the SID before you slide on the heat sink. You don't need much. These heat sinks clip on very tightly so just put a thin coat in the middle of the chip and leave a few mm around the edge uncovered since it will get spread out by the heat sink. Don't overdo it. I bought a small tube of it at a local computer shop (intended for CPU heat sinks) for about $1. It took 2 tubes for 8 SIDs.

If you're in the States you can order those same heat sinks from Electronic Precepts per my original post. They are not keen on doing international shipping so if you are outside the US just PM me and I can sell you some. I bought a bunch of extras last time I ordered specifically to help out the international folks but just haven't gotten around to posting anything about it. I forget how much they cost, but I think I got them for under $1 each since I bought them in bulk last time.

They are probably unnecessary, but I don't want to chance it with my precious SIDs. :-)

[m00dawg]

On 10/5/2009 at 6:46 PM, m00dawg said:

 

:) I just don't want to have to desolder all those cables again :) I am having trouble getting some of the broken wire ends out of the holes and it would just be a huge huge pain over just fixing the broken wires. The wires end up breaking simply because I measured too short it seems. So I just put a longer wire there and seems to do the trick.

 

Besides, I still haven't figured out a good way to strip all that ribbon cable to the same length. If I could do that, it probably would be easier to manage.

Self quoting myself and resurrecting an ancient thread but of note ^ yeah all that came back to bite me hard. I've had my MB6582 in a box for years now and while I want to still build a rackmount version, I'm having to remake some of those board designs as they got lost somehow :( So in the meantime, thought it'd be better to try and resurrect my 6582. Alas with all the soldering and desoldering of cables and wires to the base and CS, I've pretty handily ruined chunks of the I/O section to the point I'm likely going to just build a new baseboard. I ordered a new CS board and parts as well just in case.

Back to the heatsinks though, I was pondering going back to adhesives but couldn't find any readily available on Mouser that fit the profile. So I think I'll stick with the ones mentioned here. I've been using them in my sammichSID for years without issues. I was still worried about the bottom clips touching the legs. I was looking yesterday and one end slots into the socket but it can still be wiggled on the other end to the point the metal _might_ touch the legs, though it was hard to tell when looking closely. It's painted metal so some protection there but that's my only gripe with them.

Unfortunately, the links in the original post are not correct so it would take a bit of digging to find them again I suspect.