Where are all the big heat sinks?

[NPreston]

So, Iv'e been messing around a bit here and there building some pretty crude amps, and am about to make another parts order soon to replenish the stock of burned out transistors I have went through..   I was just wondering where people are getting their large heatsinks from??  Looking for big aluminum ones with the fins on them..   That being said, I'm sure my "hack" designs have just as much to do with burning transistors as my lack of proper heatsinks..   Anywhere in Canada perhaps?  Not wanting to pay a whole lot in duties ect/shipping ect... 

[Enzo]

You can google "heatsinks"  And a ton of places pop up, some sponsored others just hits.

I used to do a small amount of consumer audio repair - I fixed receivers and stereo amps.  And a lot of them wound up in my junk pile when the estimates were declined.   I often stripped them down, and I used to save the heat sinks.  Tossed them all when I closed my shop.  But I bet if you looked you could find some dead receivers or stereos for next to nothing, and find the heat sinks in them.

[J M Fahey]

And for not-that-large power amps, think 15W up to 30W, maybe using 1 or 2 TDA2030/50 or LM1875, search for extruded aluminum such as used fo kitchen windows or patio/garden doors, some are reasonable thick (at least 1.5mm, 2.5 or 3 mm even better) and generally being complex shapes that increases surface and acts as fins.

Ask at a local junkyard or neighbourhood aluminum window maker, any scrap they have for peanuts or free will do for quite a few projects at nil or no cost


worst case, you´ll have to use the old