Folks, To make a decent bright bicycle rear light I'd have to ideally remove a 1W LED from it's aluminum star base. If they are heatsinked like in this video it looks like some thermal grease is used: Not sure if that's the normal method with these small LEDs. I am concerned that such thermal grease will work itself out of there. This is for my mountain bike which is used on rough turf. Is there any other glue that can be used? I'd like to glue or somehow otherwise mount the LED to a home-made copper carrier which much better fits the innards of a retrofitted old style bike light (one where the bulb is removed). "Modern" lights that already have LEDs are mechanically too flimsy, too dim, or both. The LED is going to be operated at about 50% of rated power but then often for 4-5h. -- Regards, Joerg

The usual alternative to heat transfer paste is; some grey silicon rubber, its most often found in TO220 form, but is presumably cut from sheet. Its turned up from time to time in other sizes, and can be had thicker for high voltages like horizontal transistors. If you have 12V ready to hand - you could bolt your LED to an old left over CPU cooler.

LED star base heat sinking?

Mar 29, 2016 21 Replies

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Joerg 10 years ago

Acid flux, hmm, don't have any and that sounds corrosive if any residue is left. I think I'll try to make do with the star base and somehow jam it in there.

Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/

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Ian Field 10 years ago

Find a suitable receptacle that you can fill with thermal compound and burn off the grease component with a blowtorch.

Mix the powder that's left into 2 part epoxy.

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