Time to spoil everyone with a full breakdown of what I did today:
Idea:
Preparation:
Testing:
Application:
Polish:
I've developed my custom heatsink setup a decent bit more. Aurelio saw people soldering copper heat tubes or something, so he told me to try it out with heatsinks. The results are pretty baller.
These common stick-on copper heatsinks can be soldered to a copper plate using regular old solder. Not with an iron probably, at least without a ton of effort. I used a pretty big blowtorch, but I'm certain you could do it with a smaller one no problem. Just as long as it gets hot enough to melt the solder and get the rest of the metal pretty hot. Doesn't even need to get up to orange/red levels of heat; mine melted into place within seconds. Bring a pair of tweezers/pliers so you can adjust the heatsink in place, and make sure that it's clamped in a vice that's basically level; once it's all molten, it can easily slide around and be adjusted.
So, since everything gets up to temp and there's plenty of flux, the solder can actually flow up between the heatsinks and solder them together as well. If you look closely in the last picture, you can probably see it. This means a little bit of extra work after, because I had to dremel out some solder that was blocking airflow, but a fully connected assembly means better heat transfer and additional strength. Granted, if you're building a portable right, you probably won't need it, but if it's worth doing, it's worth doing right...with a blowtorch.
I gave it the drop test, from above my head onto my garage floor, and it didn't pop apart or anything. Even after dremeling out the excess solder in between the fins, it's still together just fine, and I don't expect that to change.
10/10 would recommend. This is my favorite part of the portable now.
I haven't actually used this on the Wii yet, but I've been tracking temperatures this entire time, using a variety of different variables; I've run the fan from both 3.3v and 5v, tested in open air, closed case, with just the plate/stick-on heatsinks, different thermal pastes, etc. Again what I can pull off with this limited of a case is going to be slim, but the more I optimize it, the better off I'll be I think.
More updates coming never.