G210 Geckodrive heatsink/cooling

[klick0]

I recently got the G210 gecko driver, i'm wondering how most people cool the G210?

I ran it without a heatsink for a very very short period of time, at first it worked ok then it started missing steps within 10 seconds, i shut it down and realized that hte bottom plate was getting very very warm.

Not sure it matters but I was running at 24 volts (with some cheap steppers just for testing, the japan servo kind you buy from hobbycnc.com) the amperage pull was around 7amps while driving, then dropped to 3 amps after stopped for one second. I have a mastech 0-50v and 0-20amp power supply, not sure how accurate the guages are, but based on the specs of the driver it sounds like it was showing accurate amperage pull.

I'm thinking of just buying some cpu heatsink/fan combinations as they are cheap and can be run from a 12 volt power supply. I also contimplated using peltier coolers with a heatsink/fan, not sure if that's going overboard, course peltiers don't really work that great unless you goto water cooling, which really would be overkill I assume.

Basically I'm just looking for cheap, but very reliable, geckodrive cooling techniques.

Thanks,
Ross

[WeCheat]

Take a look a this it might be just what your looking for. http://www.rogersmachine.net/MPG/heatsink.html

[klick0]

Thanks WeCheat, good heatsink.

Is everybody else just using standard heatsinks without any fan? Works well?

Thanks,
Ross

[WeCheat]

I have fans on mine, I live in west Texas and it gets hot in the summer. There hooked up to a controller with temp sensors I got from an old PC, Like the ones from this site http://www.directron.com/sensors.html I don’t know if it is needed as I usually make short runs with my plasma cutter. I think it is more “peace of mind thing” and I always hate it when I let out the magic smoke that make the electronics work.

[ynneb]

You may also like to broswe through this for ideas http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showth...t=12890&page=1