Silly question about heat sink

I see some build with external heat sinks. I’ve searched but can’t see how they’re done. Is part of the box cut away & the heatsink is part of the VESC or is it an extra heatsink that is somehow connected to the VESC?

Not sure how others done it but this is how I did it on my tow boogie with pelican case.

  • Cut out square from pelican case
  • 10mm thick aluminum plate attached on the inside of the case
  • Cut threads into plat and case hole boundary
  • Fastened with bolts and appropriate sikaflex marine goo
  • Cut threads into alu plate with same bolt pattern as VESC PCB attaches into stock heatsink
  • Attached VESC to alu plate through bolts and added adhesive thermal sheets between PCB and alu plate
  • Sprayed some conformal coating over the now exposed PCB (Might add 3D printed cover in future.
  • Attached adhesive heatsink fins on outside of alu plate (Might change to a water-cooling block in future)

Hope it helps