I needed a heat sink for the Himax motor on my Shogun 400. Here is how I went about making one.
Date: 6-19-04

I was first going to lathe a larger round piece but then used my band saw to cut this "square" out of a "2x4" piece of T6-6061 aluminum. To quicken the process I cut the corners off.	For the mount, I drilled a hole to accept a 6/32 tap. I used the tap as the arbor. Worked great.	I could not  figure out how I was going to bore out such a large hole with precision. Then it hit me, use an endmill as the boring tool! Awesome!	I cannot believe how easy it was to bore this out! The endmill made butter out of the aluminum! Here are the chips after just one pass cutting 1mm deep (2 total) since it's on the radius. Use oil.
I than switched to the cutoff blade and started making the fins. This part took sometime as the chips didn't clear as quickly.  (NOTE: In the 2nd version the fins were cut first and the hole bored after. Much better way).	Here is the completed heat sink. It came out dead on but I wanted it to be a little tight for a good fit. I had to cut a larger slot using the bandsaw and then pinch it together in the vise. Nice, but heavy.	Here you can see the cut. After pinching, it fits really tight! Weight: Heavy! 13.1 grams	See the new heatsink made after killing this one? Scroll down :) Or, Back to the SHOGUN 400 Page? CLICK HERE

Well I wanted to lighten it so I inserted a spacer, chucked it up on the lathe and everything was going well. Then the mount (for the cutoff tool) got loose
and it grabbed the piece and ripped it out :( Here is the 2nd remake and this came out 100% better! I cut the fins FIRST and then bored it out, a much better way. I also made sure the hole bored was 20.15 mm and also took more time cutting the slit on the bandsaw.
Second times the charm right? Nope, 4th time is :) 6-20-04

Busted First Heatsink You can see the gouges here after the piece was ripped out of the chuck.

This one came out almost perfect! Much better finish, fit and weight.

SECOND heatsink KILLED ! I killed this one also trying to lighten it further! You would think I would have learned to make it right the first time!

THIRD HEATSINK Killed! This is it! No more messing around after it is done. This one also came out "just right" and I had to squeeze it to get it "tight." The weight on this one is MUCH better at 8.5 grams

FORTH AND FINAL ONE! OK, OK I messed with the 3rd one too :) Much nicer, full heatsink and just 7.2g. Very light! Done, done I tell you! Ok BACK TO SHOGUN?

Questions? Comments? Ideas? I would love to hear from you!
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