[Amps] Heat spreader for solid-state amps

[Peter Chadwick]

Duane said:
> Both are 6" x8", but one is 3/8" thick and the other is 1/2" thick.<
Bear in mind that copper is a bit of #*@#¤%&*~ to work with. It tends to easily bind up drills and taps, so you really want to grind drills to have a bit of negative rake, although I can't grind drills offhand well enough to do that with any accuracy. It certainly 'binds' taps, so using a slightly larger hole than usually recommended can help. Be careful, too, of any sharp edges giving you a cut, as cuts from copper are, for some reason, notoriously subject to infections.
So if you're looking to use screws passing through clearance holes, the 3/8 thick might be better - if the screw holes are a bit off square, it mightn't be so much of a problem. If tapping, the 3/8 needs less threads...........Also, this is definitely an area where standard US machine screws have an big advantage over the finer thread metric ones. (Personally, I don't know of a situation where they don't..........I don't like metric threads!)
73
Peter G3RZP