This isn't rocketry related, it's for my home brewery, but I need some basic guidance, and you guys have tons of experience that will help.
I bought a 12" long x 3.5" wide extruded aluminum heatsink, on which I intend to mount a couple of SSRs. As explained by the vendor, and confirmed by my measurement, there's a slight concave deflection (~0.5mm) along the narrow dimension. I haven't got a metal shop, so while milling it flat is probably the ideal solution, but would require me to send it out, and perhaps pay more for the planing than the piece cost. If that's what I need to do, I will- I just don't want to do something that's beyond necessary.
Available to me is a 4"x48" belt sander that many of us have for rocketry. If this were ferrous material, I'd shy away immediately, but 6063 is non-magnetic, so my motor should survive. I'm wondering if I'd be able to zip off that slight curvature (there's 1/4" stock material as the base) with my existing tool, or if I should bite the bullet and have it done on a mill?
I plan to use heat-sink compound, but 0.5mm is more of a deviation than it's meant to overcome...but if I have some ripple/sanding artifact but am mostly flat, I think it'll be fine for my use. What are your thoughts?
I bought a 12" long x 3.5" wide extruded aluminum heatsink, on which I intend to mount a couple of SSRs. As explained by the vendor, and confirmed by my measurement, there's a slight concave deflection (~0.5mm) along the narrow dimension. I haven't got a metal shop, so while milling it flat is probably the ideal solution, but would require me to send it out, and perhaps pay more for the planing than the piece cost. If that's what I need to do, I will- I just don't want to do something that's beyond necessary.
Available to me is a 4"x48" belt sander that many of us have for rocketry. If this were ferrous material, I'd shy away immediately, but 6063 is non-magnetic, so my motor should survive. I'm wondering if I'd be able to zip off that slight curvature (there's 1/4" stock material as the base) with my existing tool, or if I should bite the bullet and have it done on a mill?
I plan to use heat-sink compound, but 0.5mm is more of a deviation than it's meant to overcome...but if I have some ripple/sanding artifact but am mostly flat, I think it'll be fine for my use. What are your thoughts?