Heatsink support for Raspberry Pi 3 - Overkill Cooling Solution

thingiverse

A large cooling solution for Raspberry Pi 3. I'm using one as CCTV with two USB cameras capturing full HD video, and it gets too hot, causing the Pi to throttle and crash beautifully. I needed to cool it down; a small heatsink didn't work well enough, so I ordered a 40x40x18mm heatsink online from Farnell.com and stopped at a local electrical workshop near my town to ask for a cut of 6mm thick flat copper bar. They had one in their waste bin waiting for me. Don't forget to apply thermal paste between the CPU and copper block, and also between the copper block and heat sink... (I never know who will complain if I don't mention that). Files are: - PCB isolation for the piece of copper (larger than the CPU on the board) - Copper alignment and raiser - Support to clamp the cooler down on the copper and keep everything tight (using PLA flexibility, so the printed part will slightly bend) I wanted to remix a thing from Snille but he worked with SketchUp; I'm not using it. He shared his original design with me, but unable to work with SketchUp, I redesigned everything by myself on SW. The RPi is now running at 50degC with two of its cores running at 100% speed all the time. Nice and cool, clock speed isn't reduced anymore, and the RPi doesn't crash. I wrote this quickly; if you want more pictures or details, comment out, I'll do my best. Please note the "CD flat cable" in the picture is only to show there's clearance for such a connector. Be careful what you're using here; some of these cables can cause damage.