Rectifier relocation kit

[Charles S Otwell]

Hi All,

   I have an idea for a relocation mount and a better heat sink. I am a mechanical designer and I use AutoCad, Solid Works, and mostly Pro Engineer for my designing software. I heard that Honda has a great R/R but they did not supply enough heat sink or fin area to the case. If we could get enough members that would be interested I would design and create a print for a mounting kit that is made out of extruded aluminium that is heat sink material. I could get some quotes or if any of you guys have a friend that has a machine shop you could. The problem with the idea is you have to purchase a 8' piece to get a good price. We could get maybe 32 pieces from one bar. We could machine out the middle to fit the r/r and lose all that surface area or mount it on the back and use long 8-32 SHCS for the mounting. I have a 1st Gen and mine is mounted in a different location. You might be able to order a saw cut piece from McMasterCarr but you will pay Obama prices

Hey Cadmandu, welcome to Moot, the R/R topic is one of the oldest most posted on topics on this forum. If you want to catch up a little check out this thread

http://www.magnaownersoftexas.com/forums/index.php?topic=2167.0

[Len Averyt]

We ran some stress analysis on the bracket as designed.
in aluminum it would eventually fatigue brake due to bending it. harder grade aluminum doesn't like to be bent. softer aluminum is easy to bend but remains that way. machining the bracket would be the best but its too cost prohibitive.

Making the unit out of Stainless steel actually held up better.

The analysis was using Solidworks built in features.
So I'm going to get it quoted made from 308 stainless

[silveradocowboy]

What about heat treating the Al. or machining extrusion?

[Len Averyt]

What about heat treating the Al. or machining extrusion?

We have a aluminum heat sink that we use that is custom extruded and it is very expensive to do that. the $8K cost of the dies alone would be more than the cost of 100 parts which is what I'm guessing is the max sell quantity of this part.
Machining any part from a billet add lots and lots of labor costs and a lot of material waste even if done with CNC.
As for heat treating, I'm not sure, would have to ask, don't know if that would help or hurt or that you can heat treat aluminum.

Steel would be best but we would have to paint it or powder coat it, this would negate some of the "heatsink" property's of the bracket.
Stainless steel is next for plyability and still allows a metal to metal heatsink and has a good cosmetic appearance.
Aluminum is third best, would be second if the fatigue issue wasn't a problem. Even anodized it keeps a good metal to metal heatsink.

[silveradocowboy]

... or maybe welding pieces of sheet Al. to a piece of angle Al.?

[silveradocowboy]

Heat treating is probably to expensive if you don't already have the equipment but here is some info on heat treating...

http://www.engineersedge.com/aluminum_tempers.htm

http://www.keytometals.com/article39.htm