Re: DAP-1533 probable thermal failures - hello again!
Well I have completed my "after warranty thermal upgrade" of my DAP-1533 replacing the D-Link installed thermal pads with proper heatsinks. And please do remember the "AFTER WARRANTY EXPIRES" part - doing this will certainly void any remaining D-Link warranty you may have on the unit.
I've gone through three DAP-1533's, all had failed the same way - the DAP-1533 started to run very hot during heavy streaming (HD video - bridge mode - 5Ghz band), the statistics page on the DAP-1533 WEB interface started to show many errors, and then the LAN ports went "dead" and the DAP-1533 was no longer "visible" on my DIR-857 media router... The three failed units were replaced on warranty (thank you D-Link!). After the D-Link warranty expired, I installed my "thermal upgrade" on the last replacement unit that D-Link sent me and things have never worked better...
You can find the picture of the upgrade here:
http://imageshack.us/a/img13/1039/r1eq.jpgand it looks like this:
The smaller aluminum/nickel heatsink on the left side is an H29 size and the two larger ones on the right are H30 size. The three of them together cost about 45 cents... I got mine on eBay, but they should also be available from electronic supply stores. The way I decided what needed to be done was by touching each chip inside of the DAP-1533 while it was streaming HD video and noting the components that I thought were getting too hot. There were three and that is where the heatsink upgrades went!
The "thermal upgrade" procedure was as follows:
1. Open the unit - there are two screws under two of the rubber feet that need to be removed and then carefully press the "holding clips" on the side of the case and pop off the top.
2. Remove the two D-Link installed thermal pads and underlying thermal tape placed over the two chips on the right side of the unit (see picture). This was relatively easy for me because the "stickiness" of the thermal tape under the thermal pads was almost nil. I guess that the heat generated by the underlying chips weakens the glue and since there are no "clamps" holding down the thermal pads, they get looser and looser over time until thermal conductivity is lost and the chips fail.
3. Clean the surface of the chips , the surface of the RF shield, and the bottoms of the heatsinks to insure no residual glue or contaminants remain. If your heatsinks ship with thermal tape - remove it and clean off any residual glue. I used industrial isopropyl alcohol 99.99% pure - this is available in most electronic supply stores.
4. Mix up a small batch of JB-Weld epoxy (this has very good thermal characteristics, it is very strong, it can stick ceramic and aluminum together, and it will not degrade with time as does "unclamped" thermal tape). JB-Weld claims they use "steel" in their epoxy mix - after mixing it is a dark grey color like the chips. This is probably what gives it the good thermal conductivity characteristic.
5. Place a small "pea" of the epoxy on top of each of this chips and over the chip location under the RF shield. Be careful not to cover any vent holes in the RF shield that are not already covered by the D-Link heat sink compound underneath the shield. Be very sparing with the epoxy, since using too much will overflow the epoxy over the edge of the chip when the heat sinks are applied and this would cause problems.
6. Carefully spread the epoxy compound over each chip's surface being careful not to get any down the side of the chip where the compound could compromise the soldered connections or PC board. The epoxy on the RF shield should not cover any of the open vent holes - only cover the vent holes directly over the RF chip which are already plugged with heat sink compound. I simply used the bottoms of the heatsinks to spread the epoxy as I was putting the heatsinks down (however I've done this type of thing before).
7. Press the heatsinks onto the chips and onto the RF shield as shown in the picture. Be sure the ridges are aligned as shown for airflow in case the unit is mounted vertically. Apply enough pressure to insure that the epoxy is evenly distributed and only forms a very thin layer. Clean up any epoxy overflow using isopropyl alcohol, toothpicks, and lint-free cloths.
8. Note that the chip nearest the LAN ports is much smaller than the heatsink - so you'll need to be careful with gluing the H30 heatsink onto this chip and not using too much epoxy. This chip is actually for a smaller H29 size heatsink, but since this is the chip that seems to get the hottest and probably the one that fails, I opted for the larger H30 size heatsink. Note that this H30 size is the same size as the thermal pad that D-Link used. This tells me that D-Link knew that this chip runs hot!
9. Let the epoxy cure for at least twelve hours. Note that you will never be able to "un-glue" the heatsinks from the chips or RF shield, but since these are surface-soldered devices (ie: would not be fixed by an electronics technician) and the DAP-1533 would be off warranty - who cares!
10. Re-assemble the case.
After doing this upgrade, the DAP-1533 runs much cooler. The heatsinks are "warm" to the touch (whereas touching the original thermal pads was downright hot - too uncomfortable for anything other than a quick touch and ouch! - especially the thermal pad nearest the LAN ports...)
I have been doing heavy HD video streaming over the last week or so and the thermometer that I have on top of my DAP-1533 now reads just a few degrees above room temperature (whereas before the "thermal upgrade" it was over ten degrees above room temperature). I also note that my DAP-1533 registers zero errors (absolutely none) after this upgrade. I guess hot chips give advanced warning of failure by generating errors...
I would have opted to buy another media bridge (regardless of manufacturer) if I could have found one that worked as well. I couldn't find a better performing one so I went to the effort of designing this "mod" to my DAP-1533. To the folks at D-Link - "Please clean up your act", the DAP-1533 is really an unbeatable unit for as long as it continues to work.
Hope this helps others...
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Topic: DAP-1533 Heat Issues...A Thermal Upgrade Mod (Read 93305 times)