Does anyone have experience with these flexible heat pipes?
They look to be ideal for low profile cases or other custom and hard to fit cooling situations.

So I guess I can answer my own question now. I was able to get a couple sample pieces of the Flat Cool Pipes and built a fanless mini-itx system. These cool pipes are very nice - flat, flexible and able to keep an Intel i3-2100T cool without fans in a small case.

Here are the system specs:
Intel i3-2100T
Asrock H67 mini-itx board
Crucial 64 Gb SSD
Kingston HyperionX 2x2 Gb
picoPSU-160
Habey EMC-800S case
Heatsinks from HeatSinksUSA - $14
Amec Thermasol Flat Cool Pipes

I modifed the case by cutting openings in each side. The Cool Pipes attach to the heatsinks with some Arctic Silver and copper foil tape. The heatsinks are bolted to the case. I secure the Cool Pipes to the CPU and SB with AS again and clamp them down with the original heatsink brackets.





CPU temps are 34C at idle, 42C after playing 1080p bluray rip for one hour, 68C after 30 minutes of Prime95.

Always wanted to try this, and interesting that such a thin strip of material is so effective at transferring heat.

Is the material easy to bend? or break?

And do you know of a similar source for heatsinks in the UK/Europe?

cheers

The coolpipe is easy to bend. I've bent it back and forth several times without problem. It is also harder to kink than a regular heatpipe when bending because the individual channels in it are so small.

Sorry, don't know of any other sources for heatsinks like this, and I've looked for them a lot. You can try places that sell surplus electronics. Sometimes they have heatsinks that will work.

how much do they cost and can you specify the model you got?

The Thermasol part number for the coolpipe is MHP-2040A150A. Unfortunately, they will not sell single pieces to the public, only OEMs. However, I am talking to their sales department about buying a quantity of them to resell, if there is enough interest.

So far, it doesn't look like it. I'm surprised, as these coolpipes offer a unique, simple, cheap and effective way to create a fanless and truly silent PC.

I'm interested ...although I am in UK so may be easier to go direct, I've dealt with them before as they also do rubber vibration mounts

as you say, heatsinks are easy to pick up on eBay etc., I think it's the fixings that may present more of a challenge

Mike, why don't you see if you can organize a group purchase?

Better for someone who is really interested to start up a poll thread to draw & sign up other interested parties. Doing this from Canada (whose population is a tiny fraction of either EC or US where the main SPCR audiences are) is not ideal.

You don't have to do it yourself. You just need to put your support behind someone who wants to do it. This might not be the right product to do it on... but there are others. You can serve as a catalyst to enable such collaborative buying efforts. Perhaps some modest portion of the revenues could be allocated to support the SPCR website.

For instance, someone like you could approach Scythe and ask if they would do a special run of the Mini-Ninja. I suspect there might be a fairly high interest in something like that by a number of people within your sphere of influence. Let someone else manage the project you enable it to happen.

Yes, you're right, good suggestions. To those interested in a group purchase of the Amec products, I'll be happy to lend my support.

I've been waiting to see if there was any more interest in these flat coolpipes before updating this thread, so now I will. I was able to purchase a small quantity of them, mainly because I wanted to build more of these silent systems for myself, since from what I've learned so far, they work quite well for small HTPCs with low power (35 or 65 w TDP) cpus. I have more than enough to satisfy my needs, so I would be willing to sell some to anyone that is interested.

Some things to keep in mind: these would only be suitable for small or thin cases if the intent is to pipe the heat outside, because the length is only 150 mm (at least for the non-custom sizes). So for a case that fits snuggly around a mini-itx board with cpu roughly in the middle, that leaves about 50 mm for the condensor portion of the pipe if the heatsinks are on the sides. For a top-mounted heatsink, case height is the limiting factor. The Habey cases work well with these but I'm sure there are others. I am working now on a case mod for a Habey EMC-600 with heatsinks on the top, to cool a 65w Intel i5.

I think a group purchase would work as well, but since I've already done the upfront work with Amec and have enough of these to provide a few other people, just let me know and we can decide on a price, if that's OK with Mike.

-William

coppertubing -- you go!

OK, then. If anyone wants to purchase one of these Amec Thermasol Flat Coolpipes, send me a PM. They are as described on the Amec website and the part number is MHP-2040A150A. The price is US$10 apiece plus shipping. I can accept Paypal.

I have about 40 pieces available but I can get more if needed.

@ coppertubing

Can you explain in more detail how you mounted the flat heat pipes to the CPU? Perhaps with close up photos?

I have an old stereo amplifier case with massive heat sinks on each side, and I've been interested in hacking it into a fanless HTPC for a while. And these flat heat pipes look convenient.

The heatpipe sits flat against the cpu with some Arctic Silver to ensure good contact. I use a short piece of 6mm copper bar on top of the heatpipe as a spacer and a heatsink fan mounting bracket to clamp it all down. Here are some pictures from my latest build, which is for a 65 watt Intel i5-2405S on a Foxconn H67 mobo, in a Habey EMC-600 case.

One flat coolpipe, one with the desired angle, and the copper bar spacer:


Closeup of XIGMATEK mounting bracket:


Sideview:


Dual extruded aluminum heatsinks. The condensor end of the coolpipe will be clamped between them:


Finally the semi-finished product:


These coolpipes are very easy to work with and perform quite well. I will have temp data for this passively cooled 65 watt Intel i5 build shortly.

I don't understand what these fins are. Please explain.

[quote="ces
I don't understand what these fins are. Please explain.[/quote]

Those are heatsinks. I bought them from HeatSinksUSA. They are on the condensor end of the heatpipe to dissipate the heat from the CPU.

Do you mean that they hover over the top of the case?

No, not quite. It's hard to see in the picture but I have a couple small plastic spacers between the heatsink and the case lid, so that the heatsinks "hover" to increase air flow around them.

Thanks! Are the ones you have for sale the standard 150mm length?

Yes. They are 150 mm long, 40 mm wide and 2 mm thick.

I'm interested in one of these. I'll shoot you PM once I finalize my configuration. I also have the same case btw.

Hello

I'm new to this forum and very interested by fanless cooling solutions.

I'm building my own case with aluminium, and I'm was thinking to use heatpipes but I had'nt find until now.
I've some questions :

Do you how many watt this pipes could manages ? You said 300w but does it really do the job for a processor i7 with a big comsuption of power ? (Mine is I3 530 with a low tdp, so I'm not worrying, just asking)
Did you calculate dimensions for the heatsink ? How ?
How did you fix the coolpipe to the heatsink ? (just artic silver ?)
Do you think a fan would be usefull, in extraction maybe ?
Did you have troubles of temp with this solution ?

To conclude, i post a link where guys made a full aluminium case, it' in french, but the picture talk for itself:
http://www.homecinema-fr.com/forum/view ... &start=180

Hope you could help! Thanks

As DIYers, it is simply not possible to answer your first half dozen questions with any precision. First, the answers are highly dependent on other factors. A heatpipe is only a part of a cooling system, so to speak of its thermal capacity in watts doesn't really make sense. You have to take into account both the heatsink and the evaporator, at the very least.

Hands-on experimentation is really the only way to answer your questions. You can do it scientifically, though, as the article I link below shows.

For a better understanding of what heatpipes do, and how to think more usefully about them, read Measuring Heatpipe Efficiency. It's not about the Amec pipes, but it is highly relevant to the questions you ask. Carefully read my notes at the end of the article.

Hi Antoine,

I can try to answer some of your questions based on my experience. According to Amec Thermasol, the max thermal transfer rate depends on the flatpipe thickness and orientation, and for their thickest pipe, it can be up to 300 watts. But like MikeC says, it also depends on some other things like the evaporator contact area and condensor heatsink. The size of flatpipe that I used has been able to sufficiently cool both a 35w tdp i3 and a 65w i5. Unless you use some really big heatsinks and maybe some supplemental cooling fans, I don't think it would handle an i7.

I did not do any calculations for the heatsink size. I chose it rather to fit with the case dimensions. The flatpipes are fixed to the cpu with ArcticSilver, and I used 1 mm thermal conductive silicon pads (search on ebay) to connect to the heatsinks.

I have considered adding a large and slow fan blowing on the heatsinks to help with the cooling, but haven't added it yet. The complete silence is too enjoyable. The temps stay within reason for both the i3 and the i5, normally less than 45C for most operations.

I read with a lot of attention your link Mike, and it's very useful, thanks.

@coppertubing : I'm a little bit surprised by the choice of "thermal silicon compound".
Why did you use this ? Why don't you use artic silver too ?

Did you do a hole in the heatsink (or in the heatpipe??) to put them together ?

Thanks

Looks like you did not notice that it's an article by a volunteer contributor in NZ, not by SPCR staff.

Here is my latest build using the flatpipes, this time with two of them connecting to the heatsinks attached to the case sides. CPU is an Intel i3-2100T on a Foxconn H67 board. CPU temps stayed about the same, maybe a little better - 38C at idle, < 45C under normal load, about 65C under heavy load. The case gets a little warmer since it is now acting as part of the heatsink. The thermal silicon pads provide better contact between the heatsink/case and the condensor end of the flatpipe.

I was interested in purchasing some of these flexible cool pipes, but looks like PMing is offline at the moment. coppertubing, do you still have some available?