3W LED heatsink hack

Technology

3Wledheatsinkhack
From the MAKE: Flickr pool

ALH84001 wanted to use a surface mount 3-watt LED off-board but they’re quite dependent on a PCB plane to drawing away all that hot, hot heat. Hmm, what to do?

his is an Everlight EHP-AX08LS 3-watt red LED, soldered to a piece of bus bar, which was then crimped to a TO-220 style heatsink with some lithium grease to help heat transfer. the zip tie keeps stress off of the solder joints. the heatsink reaches about 50 degrees C with the LED burning steadily at 980mA.

with this LED, the heat pad on the back is internally connected to one of the LED terminals, so its important not to short it out on accident.

I might build a few for my bicycle.

Sure to make quite the bangin’ bike light … perhaps some diffusion could help avoid eye pain – 3W LED heatsink hack

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