Lapping Heatsinks and You

Alexm920

I should try this some time. Ironically, I've lapped parts before, but never a heatsink. The lab I work at laps charge coupled devices (CCDs) for enormous telescopes, and I got to lap a chip down to just a couple microns thick.

Rather than sanding directly, a rotating ultrasmooth plate spins while the operator squirts a metalic-water slurry onto the plate, which scrapes away imperfections a fraction of a micron at a time. A ungodly expensive metal chuck (with a digital thickness readout) applies the pressure to the chip. It gets amazing results, but smells like hell and makes quite a mess.

I'm sure they wouldn't mind if I lapped a heatsink on it at some point, as long as I cleaned up afterward.

Joe_B_Me

^ I could only dream of using such machines to lap heatsinks. I've seen only a select few polish that way. Every time they get perfect results ^_^