Lapping a CPU, the proper way [AMD 3950x]

what we're doing today is basically sending so we're using a 40 80 180 400 600 and 1200 sent papers and all of those are actually sent papers they are not lapping lapping is something that's even beyond polishing because that's the point where it's the man we saw in the intro was their Bower and as he correctly points out wet-sanding is not laughing in the world of machining the domain I inhabit laughing as a process achieved with a lapping plate and an abrasive suspended in a thin film of oil in industrial settings it's typically performed by dedicated lapping machines but it can also be done by hand entirely without any sort of precision instruments and lapping is actually very easy to get into as a precision machining process it has by far the lowest barrier to entry of any however the only things I'm able to find when searching online for CPU laughing is people using sandpaper even when Steve Burke of gamers Nexus visited a record-setting overclocker kingpin and was shown the machine he uses in his office at EVGA it was a sanding machine so this is I guess at tnp 2020 FR yet a sanding machine this had me thinking how hard can it be to do this properly and what are the potential benefits the only measurements i've been able to find so far of a sanded cpu were from the german website OC inside they were able to produce a surface that was flat to an accuracy of thirty microns but even these people didn't use the tools materials or measuring equipment to produce something that was flat to the degree I'm going to be showing you in this video so just what the hell is laughing what you are looking at are not waffle irons their laughing place surfaces of near-perfect flatness I made myself after being inspired by Tom Lipton of ox2 Co I cut a chunk of scrap steel into three equally thick plates and after facing them on a lathe started lapping them together a Tom B B on C see on a over and over again this method called three plate method was initially invented by English engineer Joseph Whitworth and allows you to create flat surfaces to incredible degrees of accuracy without any reference by rubbing three plates together in succession you will remove the high spots they have in common the end result can only be a flat plane this is a really elegant way of creating precision from nothing and can be used to also create angle plates and master squares any number of tools can then be created using them as a reference nearly every piece of technology you enjoy in your life today can trace its accuracy to a surface plate created using the three plate method wet sanding can't do this even if using a perfectly flat surface as a base for your sandpaper you will always be prevented from achieving a truly flat result by the cushion of previously braided material your workpiece is being pushed around on that's what these grooves are for they are channels that collect the material being removed and also help keep the abrasive film uniform and laughing is only a finishing process however while sure I could take my 3950 ex and lapid from start to finish it take me forever keep in mind a cpu IHS is very far from flat die pressing sheet metal is not a process the results in precision parts so what is my roughing operation going to be then I don't have access to a surface grinder so this hand-cranked mill will have to do I'm just playing this by ear and I don't even have inserts on hand for soft metals but the result I'm getting here is much flatter than what I began with and dramatically reduces the time spent with sandpaper to get me to the point where I'm able to begin the mapping process properly to protect the pins of my CPU from getting bent or contaminated by any abrasive I also created this fixture from a piece of scrap stainless but the floral foam works great too I'll let you in on a little secret here you don't need any of this to lap your CPU or cooler just lap them together you won't get a flat result of this way one surface is going to end up convex and the other concave there's also going to be some roll-off towards the edges but they will match a counterintuitive principle of lapping is however that the lapping plate must be softer than the workpiece otherwise what will happen is the work piece will become charged with the abrasive and wear down the plate so while cast-iron is ideal for stainless and hardened steels it's no good for lapping softer metals it is for this reason that copper is a common material used to make lapping plates since its softness of all but guarantees it will be able to take a charge and produce the desired results the only downside being that it may have to be reconditioned or off but laughing soft metals is a real challenge copper in particular not only is creating the plates a problem on its own since relatively soft non embedding abrasives must be used if for example a diamond compound is used the risk is significant that a sharp piece of diamond will embed into one surface and shave off a chip from the other creating a deep gouge and fouling the work after experimenting with different methods and techniques over the course of several weeks when I found could reliably produce a submicron finish was using a layer of aluminum foil on top one of my lapping plates for final finishing the foil has an extraordinarily uniform thickness so introduces no error as long as he spread it evenly and is so soft it will take a charge using a diamond abrasive without me having to worry it will embed in the copper the obvious downside as the foil will easily get torn and can only be used for final polishing it is very sensitive to all manner of a minor annoyances any tiny piece of dirt in between it and the lapping plate and it will tear too much oil and it will tear too little of oil while you get the idea I started this project to investigate two questions here I have the answer to the first it was much more difficult than anticipated once I had found the proper technique however I was able to observe an interesting phenomenon two surfaces sufficiently flat and smooth can be wrung together they will stick together and can resist great forces pulling on them ringing is not dependent on the properties of metals ceramics can be wrong in a vacuum so it's an effect that occurs regardless of material choice or ambient pressure the world was introduced to ringing in 1896 with call air but you ansan invented gauge blocks reference blocks left to astonishingly precise dimensional Lawrence's and for over a hundred years the exact physical properties governing this effect have defied explanation what is conclusive however is that ringing is a result of intermolecular forces and that has me thinking if maybe thermal paste may be obsolete by this point thermal paste exists after all to fill the voids between a CPU and cooler but what if there are no voids sadly the answer to this question I'm not able to explore I started out with a supreme LTX water block that saw almost a decade of service in my Sandy Bridge system in face milling and laughing it I made a terrible mistake by disassembling it first when reassembled the central o-ring presses down on the fin stack and deforms the cold plate voiding all progress I thought I made towards making it flat it also meant I'd lost the only point of comparison I had to a standard system configuration I've since replaced it with a new water block that I also lapped to a matching accuracy but even if I were to pull the trigger in around my system without any a thermal paste I'd still be left unsatisfied because I can't know how that would compare to what I started out with at the end of the day I'm just a machinist who wanted to see if Ikki Garry's CPU to bone a little cooler I don't have the time or the hardware on hand to create massive bar graphs comparing every single performance variable but I did get in touch with a guy who does hello this is beef stew [Music]

Channel: Penrowe

Views: 105,047

Keywords: lapping, cpu, amd, ryzen, pc hardware, polishing, 3950x, flat

Id: sQw20rHvpRw

Length: 10min 9sec (609 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 22 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/pullupsNpushups]

Very cool. I hope he tests it without thermal paste against an equally flat cooler.

[u/Trivo3]

Ah, yes, Beve Sturk. Heard good things about this guy. They also call him Jech Tesus, dunno what that's about.

Btw very informative video, thanks for explaining.

[u/empathica1]

The only way to properly lap a 3950x is with a thread ripper. "I can compile my code 3 times for every time you can"

[u/destiny2sk]

I can't find the video on youtube, but proper lapping involves a flat surface mounted on a barrel, you're suppose to walk around 360 to remove imperfections from the motion / uneven hand pressure applied to the object.

[u/Takashirojm]

So this should show up on GamersNexus ?

[u/JudgeMoose]

I must say, this was a very satisfying video. And your voice is quintessential narrator's voice.

[u/zero__sugar__energy]

Watching all of Tom Liptons videos over the last few years has fully prepared me to enjoy your video

Thanks for the effort, it was very entertaining!

And now I really want to see Toms opinion on this project and how he would lap a CPU and a cooler. Maybe write him an email? He sounds like a guy who would enjoy such a project

[u/ObnoxiousLittleCunt]

How's this not on roman's channel?

[u/backyardprospector]

I believe this is obligatory https://youtu.be/-MwCJpEuC44