Mount a HeatSink on the Rock64 using 3M Thermal Tapes

[MarkHaysHarris777]

   

Tonight I'm going to be mounting a heatsink on my production Rock64 board ( using a nice heatsink I pulled from an old Epson printer stepper controller board -- the old style TO-220 heatsink ).  I'm also using thermal tape from 3M ( blue ) which serves the double function of thermal conductance as well adhesive for physical integrity.

The heatsink in the pic is about 25x15x14 mm.

   

Before you begin its a good idea to jot down the board info about your SoC if you're interested;  or like I've done here take a quick pic of it.  Once we stick the heatsink down with the 3M thermal tape, it is not going to be easy to get it off;  I've even known one guy to pull his SoC off the board because the balls gave way before the tape did !

   

I usually cut the 3M thermal tape just larger than the heatsink and then I trim it back with cuticle scissors. You do not want the heatsink (aluminum in this case) to touch any of the components on any side;  also don't worry about covering over any components. Peel the protective mylar backing away one at a time;  tape the heatsink first, then trim, then remove the other backing mylar,  and then gently place the heatsink over the SoC.

   


This pic shows the heatsink mounted and doing its thing!  With just passive cooling the temps went from mid to high 40s ℃  to mid to high 30s ℃ !  This heatsink is a little beefier than the ones I put on my Pines or Pis, and it certainly performs well even without the fan ( which is coming next week ).

   

[TeaPack]

Before you begin its a good idea to jot down the board info about your SoC if you're interested;  or like I've done here take a quick pic of it.  Once we stick the heatsink down with the 3M thermal tape, it is not going to be easy to get it off;  I've even known one guy to pull his SoC off the board because the balls gave way before the tape did !

If you decide to get this monstrum off the SoC, you have to heat that tape first ; sysbench is working good for me

[z4v4l]

Thanks to Mark for this tutorial. But what if Pine could place a heat sink in their store, so that such guys like me, who don't have old printers to pull heatsinks off them, might get one and not worry about the board overheating?
It would be so nice. Such a beefy heatsink would be cool, literally.

[MarkHaysHarris777]

Thanks to Mark for this tutorial. But what if Pine could place a heat sink in their store, so that such guys like me, who don't have old printers to pull heatsinks off them, might get one and not worry about the board overheating?
It would be so nice. Such a beefy heatsink would be cool, literally.

Looking for one actually...  but they are hard to find these days;  its an older style TO-220 case heatsink ,  like for the older linear voltage regulators.  The trouble is that they've redesigned those heatsinks to wrap around the 7405 so they're not flat on one side-- so not good for a SoC.  Radio Shack used to carry these heatsinks ( was a common part at one time ).  Seems the only way to get them now is to salvage them from older boards.

If you find one let me know; we can recommend to TLLim to stock; I'lll do same.

[stuartiannaylor]

https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/S...b095SdpSuH

Those seem to be pretty good with low height but great surface area.

There are a rake of heatsinks ready and available on alibaba under 'raspberry pi'

Its just daft to not have some form of heatsink or one in the store.

[tllim]

We plan to carry the heatsink with correct thermal adhesive tape, model 3M-8810. When connecting with heatsink vendor in China, 99% are using normal adhesive tape which is not a thermal conductive and this prompt us to roll out this heatsink.

Attached is the heatsink photo, dimension and thermal adhesive tape information. We will post on store when received the heatsink on this week and price is $0.50 each. This heatsink good for PINE A64 and ROCK64 SoC, we also make sure that the heastink dimension can expend as wide as possible and also the height will not block if there is add-on PCB sit on top.

   

   


  3m8815 Termally Conductive Adhesive.pdf (Size: 28.69 KB / Downloads: 745)

[elatllat]

What's the SOC temperature with the official heatsink under full load?
(like immediately after make -j 4 on the kernel)

[Shak7]

What's the SOC temperature with the official heatsink under full load?
(like immediately after make -j 4 on the kernel)

The temp cut off for RK3328 SOC is 120C. It's from the manual. From my tests.. I never got more than 80C using Xenial mate image and lots of things rolling, even a chess engines tournament. I get to 100% cpu and fully used RAM for almost 5 hours non stop  and never got near of cut off temp (120C).. I find putting thermal stuff on my Rock64 4GB RAM is pretty much only for aesthetics.

[Shak7]

What's the SOC temperature with the official heatsink under full load?
(like immediately after make -j 4 on the kernel)

The temp cut off for RK3328 SOC is 120C. It's from the manual. From my tests.. I never got more than 80C using Xenial mate image and lots of things rolling, even a chess engines tournament. I get to 100% cpu and fully used RAM for almost 5 hours non stop  and never got near of cut off temp (120C).. I find putting thermal stuff on my Rock64 4GB RAM is pretty much only for aesthetics.

I tried with a small 40x40x10mm 5V fan right on top of SOC and get -10C. Yes the fan is a nice add on but not required. At first I was thinking trying it.. Maybe the cpu would perform better, but it's not the case at all.

[tllim]

What's the SOC temperature with the official heatsink under full load?
(like immediately after make -j 4 on the kernel)

The temp cut off for RK3328 SOC is 120C. It's from the manual. From my tests.. I never got more than 80C using Xenial mate image and lots of things rolling, even a chess engines tournament. I get to 100% cpu and fully used RAM for almost 5 hours non stop  and never got near of cut off temp (120C).. I find putting thermal stuff on my Rock64 4GB RAM is pretty much only for aesthetics.

I tried with a small 40x40x10mm 5V fan right on top of SOC and get -10C. Yes the fan is a nice add on but not required. At first I was thinking trying it.. Maybe the cpu would perform better, but it's not the case at all.

ROCK64 doesn't general much heat, a small and good passive heatsink should able to handle on most cases. Just make sure the adhesive pad is heat conductive type, I was surprised and shocked that more that 90% of heatsink selling in market using normal adhesive pad.