In order to investigate the effectiveness of non-traditional heatsinks on the TO-220 component package, Warren tested out several approaches with pennies and even a paperclip.
In a recent thread on Head-Fi, someone asked how well a paperclip would work for heat-sinking a TO-220 part. Much speculation ensued (much of it from your humble author), including opinions that a penny might work better, and then the argument moved on to exactly how to use the penny and so on. I eventually decided that experimentation was called for, which lead to this article.
Perhaps surpisingly, the paperclip proved mightier than a single pennny. Read the detailed results of further testing – DIY Heat Sinks [via Hacked Gadgets]
4 thoughts on “Penny heatsinks?”
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Interestingly the paper clip does better than the penny. As someone said on hackedgadgets a penny does not add much surface to dissipate heat. I sometimes use metal paper clamps to cool regulators or transistors on breadboards or while debugging designs, with relative success.
Those pennies look fairly new. If you want to use pennies because you think they are copper, then use some copper pennies and not the zinc ones we have now.