Hey Vorta, thanks for the heads up on the heat sinks - I was searching around for something good like that, but hadn't found anything close with nice big fins like that. I just submitted an offer, so we'll see how it goes - I'd love to update all my S5's to use then, but first I'll see how much of a PIA doing one of them is. 
One thing I was wondering about was the placement - if you see on the image with my thermal camera, those heat dissipation squares on the PCB are actually fairly cool, it's the surrounding area that really heats up. Here's a closeup of that area on one of the newer PCB's (the one in the test case is an older S5):
http://www.analogx.com/images/laserS5v1/flir0069.jpg
The actual thermal squares are running a cool 105-115f range, whereas the area immediately surrounding it is in the 160-180f. I'll be interested to see what kinds of difference they make - I'll try some with just thermal paste first and see what they do. I can't tell if those regions are cooler because they're more effective at dissipating the heat (I'd be surprised if it were that pronounced), or if there were a heat sink there if it would absorb and radiate some of that surrounding heat.
With your ducts, did you play around at all with sizing the ports that you're using to the sides? I know you have one with and one without the sides, but just wondering if you played with larger vs smaller openings. Also, did you play around with different lengths? Mine is 5.6mm but only because that's the thickest material I had around - I could easily just use multiple ones to get more length, but wasn't sure if the gain between 5.6 and 25mm would be worth it (I read somewhere that you reached peak duct performance at 25mm for case fans, but who knows).
One thing I was wondering about was the placement - if you see on the image with my thermal camera, those heat dissipation squares on the PCB are actually fairly cool, it's the surrounding area that really heats up. Here's a closeup of that area on one of the newer PCB's (the one in the test case is an older S5):
http://www.analogx.com/images/laserS5v1/flir0069.jpg
The actual thermal squares are running a cool 105-115f range, whereas the area immediately surrounding it is in the 160-180f. I'll be interested to see what kinds of difference they make - I'll try some with just thermal paste first and see what they do. I can't tell if those regions are cooler because they're more effective at dissipating the heat (I'd be surprised if it were that pronounced), or if there were a heat sink there if it would absorb and radiate some of that surrounding heat.
With your ducts, did you play around at all with sizing the ports that you're using to the sides? I know you have one with and one without the sides, but just wondering if you played with larger vs smaller openings. Also, did you play around with different lengths? Mine is 5.6mm but only because that's the thickest material I had around - I could easily just use multiple ones to get more length, but wasn't sure if the gain between 5.6 and 25mm would be worth it (I read somewhere that you reached peak duct performance at 25mm for case fans, but who knows).
I hope they'll work for you as well. You're looking at ~1h of sticking all 60 of them.
They are quite small but they seem to be working quite well in my case. Anything else that I found to fit on the PCB had much shorter fins.Your thermal camera is very useful. I wish I had one while playing with my miners. This temperature find is quite interesting. Since the area is in direct contact with the chip it doesn't make sense to be so cold and you can get a burn on touch. Can the material on the surface affect camera's thermal readout?
When I was developing the duct I played around with several parameters. I tried different lengths and went for the one that is short enough for a 40mm screw to hold along with the fan. I didn't go with smaller as this is really minimum. I couldn't make it smaller without affecting the airflow too much. I also tried different openings for the sides and realized that the most effective size is the one that just makes the air move instead of standing there, but nothing more. Outside heatsinks are completely ineffective compared to internal heatsinks, so you don't want to waste too much air on them.
I have my miners running for days, overclocked at 400MHz, in a room which reached temperatures of 45°C during the day this week, without overheating or a jump in HW errors. Hotter miner reached 79°C with hottest chips at 93°C actual temperature. So I can definitely say for myself that the duct properly serves the purpose I made it for.
Default miner is not certified for ambient temperatures above 35°C at stock clock.http://www.pohrani.com/f/22/13A/mloCMMC/s5-black.png
http://www.pohrani.com/f/34/13F/1EKOB0IU/s5-green.png
The reason I did it was more because my pull fan would hit the screws on the back of the case, so I wanted some spacing. I believe what I've read is that around 1 inch (for case fans) is ideal length, anything more doesn't buy you anything - but I was surprised to see such a small space made such a big difference.
Why not cutting your own back of the case?
