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#35
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The fans in combination with the heatsink do a great job of cooling the 10 watt arrays since they are more or less designed for them. There are alternative options without fans in the form of larger heatsinks, but I'd like to keep the aluminum mass to a minimum. If you do any searching on eBay for similar items, you will find plenty of sellers offering heatsinks with fans suited for the larger 20 watt LED arrays, as well as the big honking 50, 100 & even larger ones. Needless to say, as you go higher with the wattage, the corresponding heatsink & fan will also have to be much larger to cool the LEDs. The fans on the heatsink for my 10 watt arrays are designed to run at full speed with 12 Volts DC. I decided to wire the fan leads to the LEDs so that my fans will run at a lower speed, since the LEDs will be run at anywhere from 9 to 10 Volts DC, depending on the size of resistor I put in series with each LED array. I've done some initial short runs to test the rail & it looks like this approach will be fine. If I need more cooling, I may simply add another piece of angle aluminum facing up to give the assembly additional mass for drawing away heat.
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Mike 77g sumpless SW DIY 10 watt multi-chip LED build ![]() |