Painting Heatsinks

[Courage]

I know this may sound kind of stupid, but I was thinking of painting a heatsink or two (mainly because blue would not go well with any of my case mods). Now I understand that most paint would mess up the heat dissipation of the heatsink.

Are there any paints that would not have this effect and are able to dissipate as much heat as an aluminium heatsink.

Also, just so you know, I'm not planning on spraying the base because that would definetely mess up the thermal conductivity, but I was rather looking to spray the top and the finds.

Any ideas?

[calumc]

any kind of paint will mess up everything.
Your blue heatsinks are anodized, not painted. So if you wanted to change them back to silver you could sand them

[Courage]

Oh well, maybe I look into electroplating them after sanding them down... I guess I could live with it. Thanks anyway.

[Airbozo]

Well, a little off computer cooling, but the cylinder heads on my motorcycle are powder coated and they dissipate heat just fine, _but_ that is on a different scale. I am not sure that a thin coat of paint would do too much insulating on the heat sink.

I say take some heat measurements and then go for it and take some more measurements.

[danthegeek]

I would have to agree with Airbozo on this. Throw on 1 or 2 light coats of paint and give it a try. If you are really worried about it you could get some "Real" metal flake paint, the small specs of metal should help bring the heat to the surface. I dont hink you would see much more then a 2-3 degrees celsius hotter.

[Courage]

Thanks guys, I'm sure I'll give it a try. I've got a spare heatsink (the rubbish one that came with the Asus board, just a big aluminium heatsink) and I can stuff around with that one and see the effects.

[Cannibal23]

Oh well, maybe I look into electroplating them after sanding them down... I guess I could live with it. Thanks anyway.

if the thin paint layer everyone else is talking about dosent work out. instead of electroplating it there is probably a shop in your city that can anodize these parts for you. basicly all it does mildly oxidise the top layer of aluminum and introduce a dye into it.

[The boy 4rm oz]

You will lose performance if you paint a heatsink. In one of dgrmkrp's mods (Project NONAME or the Bleach mod, can't remember the name, Tensa something) he painted his Thermaltake SonicTower black to match his mod and he had huge temperature rises, and how the heatsink is broke. I would highly recommend against painting a heatsink.

If you don't like how yours looks just buy a new one or make a plastic shroud.

[Spawn-Inc]

i would look into chemically burning it or something using chemical to make a thin coat of what ever. i'm not sure how it would effect the performance but i think it would be better than paint.