[daplatapus]

Originally Posted by mike31154

I guess I'm too late with this advice, but on connectors with that many pins packed tightly together, it's often a good idea to have a piece of heatshrink on the wire before soldering.

Ya ,I actually thought of that after I'd finished the first one. But what I was able to do was heat the pin up just a hair and stretch the wire insulation down over the pin. It worked really well and once the pin cooled the insulation stayed put.

I did have a buddy of mine that has the amphenol crimper and everything to do it, but these pins are meant to be soldered. The wire actually slides about 1/16" or so into the pins in a little pocket. Then one it's soldered there's nothing ever going to pull these out. It tedious work to be sure, especially those middle pins, but it works well.
And ya, I didn't want to spend the dough on the real amphenol connectors either

Originally Posted by Chatouille

For the temp sensor, I just drilled a partial depth hole in the heatsink, and used Arctic Silver thermal epoxy to secure it in the hole. My hope is that it will get a more accurate temp of the heatsink without being affected by the fan.

Yeah, I was worried the fan would affect the sensor. With all the fins on the back of this heatsink it'll just direct all the air right by the sensor. I like the idea of half drilling through the aluminum and setting in with that thermal epoxy. Did you worry about how close you were to an actual LED location?

Thanks for the feed back!