Planning Spraying the top plate of a cpu cooler.

I recently saw someone that did this to their cpu cooler:

As you can see they painted the very top plate black.
In theory that shouldn’t really influence the thermal quality of the cooler.
I would like to do something similar.


This is my cooler, a Thermolab Baram. (click for larger image)
I don’t intend to paint the entire cooler. That would hinder performance and is just plain stupid.

I was thinking of taping up everything except for the top plate and spraying it in a glossy black.
Maybe even sand the copper tips of the heatpipes a little, tape them, spray paint the plate black and then give them a clear coat. That way you get a black cooler with some aluminium silver accents from the plate below with shiny copper tips from the heatpipes.

Would automotive paint be needed? It won’t be getting that hot, would it?
Glossy paint, with a glossy coating? Or matte paint with a clear coating?
Other creative effects?

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

 

hammerite stone effect? Everythings better with hammerite

 

That would be something. But I would prefer going for a slightly smoother look.

 

hhhm this is very interesting, would love to see the result!

 

I'll probably do it this weekend. I'll keep you posted with some pictures here.

 

I was planning to do this with my mod. Great idea.


Certainly will take some of the boringness/blandness away. But do a more interesting colour than black!

Can't wait for pics.

 

I know, black is probably done by a lot of people, but it does fit the Red and Black theme I have in my case. Plus it's a nice contrast with the copper.

 

What about red?

 

Do you know what the difference bettwen Hammerite "Hammered" finish and normal "matte" finish is? I think it might be the same but Hammerite just likes to call it hammered??

 

Hammerite do a "High Heat" paint. I've used matt black on a car exhaust (brush on). Obviously ideal for high-heat areas (up to 600 degrees C but your CPU shouldn't be getting that hot!) but you might get away with regular spray paint which would give you a wider choice of colours including gloss. With regular paint it might be advised to dull the surface with abrasive paper first, and even primer it to give the finish colour less chance of scratching off easily.

 

yea have seen their high heat range for radiators and barbeques. even their normal metal paint has heat resistance whick i guess should be enough for a hsf.

 

If you can touch a surface and it doesnt take the skin off your fingers its usually safe to say its not that hot. (car bonnets dont peel away and they can get a touch toasty)
I have used normal car spray paint on rads and cpu plates, they do make high heat resistant paint in spray and brush on, but is it completely necessary ?

 

I have to agree if your top plate is getting hot enough so that it needs heat resistant paint then you have bigger issues.

 

They make paint rated for 1,000 degrees fahrenheit. You're not running a Prescott, though so you should be fine with regular paint.

IMO, a good method would be to take blue painter's tape, slip it in the gap between the top fin and the second fin from the top, and then cover the rest of it. Hit the top with some steel wool to clean it, then wipe it with a tack cloth or a lint-free cloth to get the steel dust off, and then just a cheap can of spray paint should work. I've painted the backside of halogen reflectors that get to be as hot as CPU heatsinks with the cheapest spray paint I could find, and it held fine.

 

A surreal world where I came to the modding forum to ask if this was possible (with the same cooler may I add!) only to find it at the top of the board.

Weird!

Is there any reason why you shouldn't/couldn't do this to the whole cooler, barring the base heat pipes and whatnot? Do we reckon it'd ever get hot enough?

 

not sure how far the paint would get inbetween the fins of the heatsink (may look a bit messy), not that it would be that visible though.

As the previous post suggests i doubt that it would get hot enough for the paint to peel off, but then again I think doing this to the whole heatsink would definately reduce its cooling performance as we probably couldn't get our hands on paint that is good at conducting heat.

An example is the Titan Fenrir Xmas addition which is totally painted but apprently they use a special paint which doesn't degrade the performance of the heatsink.

 

Yeah, really don't know why I didn't spend a little more at the time to get:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Ther...pe-Black-Nickel-Plated-Heat-Sink-S775-AM2-AM3

Would've made a whole lot more sense, le sigh.

EDIT: I say more, it's the same price. Le sigh hard at myself.

 

Good to see the discussion still going on.
The weather has not been playing nice here the last few days. The temperature dropped and intermittent rain. Not exactly ideal painting weather.

I did get a new idea though.
Still a black top plate, but I was thinking of doing the second colling fin in red.
With the Baram you can see part of the other plates because they alternate. And since you won't be getting in an angle that extreme that you will see any lack of paint on the second plate it won't matter.


Or maybe it will look like crap.

 

no, i think that would look awesome!!

 

sweet.

And according to someone who worked at Textronix for 27years, painting heatsinks any color actually improves the performance in some cases.

In fact, If you read Ben Rich's book "Skunk Works" there is a long section that talks about the designing of the SR-71 Blackbird. It was painted black to reduce skin temperature of the aircraft by 100+ degrees.