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My Heatsinked FZ-1

Posted: Thu Nov 01, 2012 4:49 am
by TheRealAnubis
Hey all,

I just wanted to post a pic of my heatsinked FZ-1. Did a thorough system clean, including fan, chips, and all airflow holes. All solid copper sinks. I even hit the bridge rectifier since they usually run HOT!

She runs soooo cool now!

Image

Posted: Thu Nov 01, 2012 4:52 am
by Austin
Very cool! (no pun intended. seriously!) :)

Posted: Thu Nov 01, 2012 5:12 am
by Trev
Nice.

Posted: Fri Nov 02, 2012 3:24 am
by 3DO Experience
Coolies!

Posted: Fri Nov 02, 2012 11:01 pm
by MakillaGorilla
Looks totally awesome! Aside from the cleaning and TLC, how was it done? Was it just the heatsinks and some thermal compound? Where did you get the sinks themselves?

My nerdliness is in inquisitive overdrive. Share the precious!

Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2012 1:56 am
by TheRealAnubis
MakillaGorilla wrote:Looks totally awesome! Aside from the cleaning and TLC, how was it done? Was it just the heatsinks and some thermal compound? Where did you get the sinks themselves?

My nerdliness is in inquisitive overdrive. Share the precious!
Ha! The heatsinks were from ebay, via China - you can search and get the best deal if you look a while.

Each style comes in packs of 8. Don't be fooled by people selling 2 or 4 - they are just buying from China and then splitting the packs up.

It took a couple of weeks to get them, but they are pretty nice. Self stick adhesive which is very sticky and not too thick.
Some of the pads showed the Sony brand, so it's probably pretty good stuff!

I considered using thermal adhesive (arctic silver adhesive), but I figured I'd try out the self stick pads since they came already attached (but aren't too tough to remove if you want to go the thermal adhesive route).

It appears that they are dissipating heat pretty well, as I can notice a temp increase in the air coming from the fan.

Search ebay for 'copper heatsink' and 'vga heatsink' and you will see the types I used here.

Here is an example link for the square ones ($3.99 for a pack of 8 ):

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Copper-Heat-Sin ... 4cfca52a60

and one for the rectangular ones ($4.66 for a pack of 8 ):

http://www.ebay.com/itm/8x-Memory-MC-20 ... 1c2b49d984

Just make sure to go for the free shipping. Most China orders will NOT combine shipping, so that $1 per pack can be $10+ after shipping.

The free shippers will just pop them all in a bag and send them - then you can start cleaning and sticking!

Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2012 6:04 pm
by Anonymous
A heatsink is a heatsink, how can it be "pretty good stuff" simply because it says sony on it? A heatsink isnt really rocket science.

Anyway, does the 3DO really run so hot it needs these? Ive never had problem with overheating, that i know of. Still, its fun to fiddle with your stuff and making improvements like these. And its not like you broke the bank doing it either so its all cool, pun intended!

Personally i recently "broke the bank" ordering metal upgrade parts for my 360 controller...

Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2012 8:07 pm
by TheRealAnubis
grimm wrote:A heatsink is a heatsink, how can it be "pretty good stuff" simply because it says sony on it? A heatsink isnt really rocket science.

Anyway, does the 3DO really run so hot it needs these? Ive never had problem with overheating, that i know of. Still, its fun to fiddle with your stuff and making improvements like these. And its not like you broke the bank doing it either so its all cool, pun intended!

Personally i recently "broke the bank" ordering metal upgrade parts for my 360 controller...
Well.... Copper is better than aluminum, and I was talking about the thermal stick pad being pretty good stuff. Sony is probably a better bet than some no name brand..
Anyway, it wasn't expensive, but I'll tell you, chips get hot - keep them cooler and they will work longer.

Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2012 10:18 pm
by Anonymous
Didnt think we were talking material choices, but manufacturer. But if you ment the pad it doesnt matter anyway since i missunderstood what part you were actually refering to. I dont think there can be too many differences in thermal compounds manufacturers either though. most likely sony buys these from whoever makes them and rebrands them, its the most common thing out there. but i could be wrong, they could make them inhouse, but i doubt it.

as for chips getting hot, sure, but like i said, never really heard of 3DO being know for overheating issues. I didnt say your work has been unnecessary, so please dont read it that way. I did call it an improvement, and I did comment on the positive things too, but you only felt the need to comment back on what you perceived as negative...?

Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2012 10:43 pm
by Trev
grimm wrote: I didnt say your work has been unnecessary, so please dont read it that way. I did call it an improvement, and I did comment on the positive things too, but you only felt the need to comment back on what you perceived as negative...?
He probably was just commenting on the parts of your post that were questions.

Posted: Sun Nov 04, 2012 12:03 am
by 3DO Experience
grimm wrote:I dont think there can be too many differences in thermal compounds manufacturers either though. most likely sony buys these from whoever makes them and rebrands them, its the most common thing out there.
There are unscrupulous ones that are polluted and/or cut with substances.

Posted: Sun Nov 04, 2012 12:05 am
by Anonymous
Fair enough guys.

Posted: Sun Nov 04, 2012 2:48 am
by TheRealAnubis
Hi,

I wasn't trying to focus on the negative stuff - I was checking messages at a LAN party and when I read your post it seemed to be telling me that it was a waste of time to do it.

I usually respond to points brought up when I get messages, so it may look as though I was only responding to the negative, but actually I was just responding to the questions.

Of course, anything is possible with the thermal pads, but my point was that these aren't the fluffy pillow type pads, but thinner black sticky material that should hold on really well.
Sony is a trusted brand (for some) and usually they won't have their name on stuff that is total junk (again, possibly subjective).

I've been an advocate for heatsinks for a long time. Sure, the 3DO wasn't released with heatsinks - but not because the chips don't get hot - just because they don't get hot enough to destroy themselves in a short period of time.

For a company making electronics, then and now, production cost is a big deal. Saving time and money by skipping the heatsinks - pretty good call because these units are still running since 1993 or so.

But -

A major stress of all electrical components is heat. If you can bleed even a little of that heat off of a chip, then you are prolonging its life. Maybe not necessary, but still easy to do, and effective!

Posted: Sun Nov 04, 2012 11:58 pm
by Anonymous
Well, now that you've had the chance to read the message again, i hope you see that it says quite clearly that it wasnt a waste of time. Not saying something like "wow really cool, you made something great now" doesnt mean its the opposite.

I was simply expressing my opinion, and it clearly supported the feeling to fiddle with your things and making improvements. I cant see myself how that is portraying it as "waste of time".

Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2012 5:56 am
by sneth
well i like the idea. I don't think I've heard of 3DO's having heat issues, but I do have other electronics that could benefit from this.

Pretty cool to see this done.

Did you do any testing of before and after temperatures?
How did you choose which points to place them?

Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2012 11:12 am
by Austin
One of these days when I get ahold of a FZ-1, I will give this a try. I don't think these will fit in my FZ-10. ;)

Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2012 1:18 pm
by Anonymous
Why would they not fit in the FZ-10? Is the fit so snug in those? Ive never opened one so i dont know. Its thinner than the FZ-1, but its not THAT thin really.

Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2012 6:28 pm
by Austin
Looks like a visual comprehension FAIL on my part. Looking at his pictures again, they really aren't very large heatsinks, so they probably would work fine on the FZ-10. I for some reason thought they were much taller than they actually are.

Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2012 6:36 pm
by Austin
Well, I went ahead and picked up both types of sinks since they are so cheap. Looking at the FZ-10 motherboard, it looks like only a couple of chips reside under the drive area--the rest appear to be relatively open, so I shouldn't have to do much. :)

Posted: Tue Nov 06, 2012 12:51 am
by TheRealAnubis
Well, I went ahead and picked up both types of sinks since they are so cheap. Looking at the FZ-10 motherboard, it looks like only a couple of chips reside under the drive area--the rest appear to be relatively open, so I shouldn't have to do much.
Yea, on the FZ-1 most of them are under the metal plate so the heat should be directed out of the sides. They have a good clearance for airflow, so that's no worry!

Good luck on your ez-heatsink mod, and don't forget to post a pic so I can see your FZ-10!
Did you do any testing of before and after temperatures?
I should have done a more precise testing to see what the differences were, but I basically popped in Return Fire and let it idle for about 30 minutes, then noted the feel of the air coming out of the fan side. It was warm, but not too bad.

After I popped the heatsinks on, I did the same thing, and the air was noticeably hotter than without the sinks - so it's pulling extra heat off the chips.
How did you choose which points to place them?

The center of the chip is usually where the 'guts' are located, so I tried to hit the center of each chip.

This machine used to be owned by a smoker, so an easy way to tell what components get hot is to clean them to see how dirty they are.
(This is a discovery after working on electronics for years - Hotter chips tend to bake that nicotine/tar on faster than cooler chips).
The dirtiest chips were the RAM chips, followed by the two 3DO graphics branded chips, the ARM chip, the chip on the bottom left of the picture that I couldn't find any real data on (DA623827PF J), and the sound chip.

Also, the bridge rectifier in the middle right gets really hot, so I sinked that, leaving some sink above to allow (hopefully) faster heat dissipation.

I cleaned all chips with 91% Isopropyl alcohol and cotton swabs until the swab came back visually clean.

Re:

Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2014 9:08 pm
by Gunstar
Anonymous wrote:A heatsink is a heatsink, how can it be "pretty good stuff" simply because it says sony on it? A heatsink isnt really rocket science.

Anyway, does the 3DO really run so hot it needs these? Ive never had problem with overheating, that i know of. Still, its fun to fiddle with your stuff and making improvements like these. And its not like you broke the bank doing it either so its all cool, pun intended!

Personally i recently "broke the bank" ordering metal upgrade parts for my 360 controller...
Just checking out everything on the site, and I'm wondering too, why is this mod so necessary? I mean my FZ-1 (bought used in '96) has been working perfectly for 18 years, I have never noticed any heat issues or over heating in any way...even when it has been placed in areas without great airflow and other systems on top and on both sides, etc.

I'm all for mods to improve and safeguard my consoles and computers, but do many people really think this is necessary? I mean, again, 18 years for me so far, plus a couple years with a previous owner and no issues with heat I ever noticed.

Re: Re:

Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2014 2:33 am
by TheRealAnubis
Just checking out everything on the site, and I'm wondering too, why is this mod so necessary? I mean my FZ-1 (bought used in '96) has been working perfectly for 18 years, I have never noticed any heat issues or over heating in any way...even when it has been placed in areas without great airflow and other systems on top and on both sides, etc.
Hi!

I'm not saying that you have to do it...

I've worked on electronics for a long time, and I know for sure that heat kills electronics. Slowly - sometimes. Other times, not so much.

Many people think that if their equipment needed heat sinks, it would have been added by the manufacturer. Not always so. I'm sure they were unwilling to add another penny to the cost of the 3DO. They weren't frying and dying, so they didn't add the heat sinks.

There is a fan, so they wanted to move that heat outside of the 3DO, but the IC's aren't sinked, probably due to costs IMO. Unfortunately, companies will do whatever it takes to save money, and if they don't 100% need it, it isn't happening.

I had the 3DO apart checking it out, cleaning it, etc. I did a test run with it loading and running games, etc. Many of the IC's got pretty hot. Hot enough where you wouldn't want to keep your finger on it for very long. For me, that's all I need. Sure, it's worked for 18 years, but will it work 20? The idea of putting the sinks on is to reduce the heat and extend the life of the IC's. Moving that heat away from the IC as quickly as possible is always the best bet when dealing with electronics.

If it's equipment that I love (My 3DO, my C64, my Intellivision II) - then it comes apart, and if something gets hot, it gets heat sinked (all 3 examples, BTW, got sinked). That's just me. You can join the cooler club, or you can just leave it as is!
8)