best way to cool a gecko 201

[bobleecnc]

Hi guys whats the best way to cool a Gecko 201 running motors @ 6 amps
Could i use a cpu fan on the bottom?
Or should I use a peltier cooler and a cpu fan combo ?
Or would just a finned heatsink be enough?
I plan on running my motors at about 6 amps will a 300kohm resistor for the current set resistor be large enough?
Thanks Bob

[mxtras]

Place it on a heat sink and fan cool the heat sink. I bolted my Geckos to a large, 1/8" thick aluminum plate - without fins. I am running 6 amps at 48 volts.

Someone here - I think it was Ynneb - suggested bolting the Geckos to a piece of extruded aluminum, rectangular tubing and then blowing air through the tubing. I thought this was an awesome way to keep them cool and keep junk out of the control cabinet. The tubing ends could exit the cabinet and any junk the fan attracts would simply be blown from one side to the other without entering the cabinet.

Scott

[bobleecnc]

Hey thats an great idea could I mount 2 or more on the same tube?

[MrWild]

I use a bucket of ice water. You have to change the ice out ever few hours but...


Hey, come on, it's a bad day and I needed to joke.

[mxtras]

Originally Posted by bobleecnc Hey thats an great idea could I mount 2 or more on the same tube?

I would imagine you could mount as many as would fit. I spaced mine so that there was about 1.5" in between them. I would imagine the more room you leave, the better the heat will be allowed to dissipate.

Scott

[daedalus]

you might not want to use an extruded tube for this, as your surface area is pretty poor, and you would have a far better surface area using a regular heatsink and forced air convection. For simplicity you could just buy a few pc cpu heatsink fan combos and use them.

if you wanted a really neat solution you could machine some waterblocks, and have water cooled drives, but thats major overkill.

[mxtras]

Originally Posted by daedalus you might not want to use an extruded tube for this, as your surface area is pretty poor, .....

Why is that? I was refering to using rectangular tubing. It's pretty flat and smooth. What are you refering to?

Scott

[daedalus]

well a normal heatsink will have a much larger surface area, as its the area of all the fins on the heatsink is usually massively larger then a flat piece of stock of similar volume. ideally you would want a piece of extrusion with extruded fins inside the tube, but i dont think you will find that, as i havent seen anyone selling it.

An example of the surface area point is a cpu heatsink, which is able to dissipate 120w of heat continuously, the surface area of all the fins is massive, allowing such a large thermal load to be handled. Doing the same with a solid block or tube would require a massive block, and the thermal resistance of the material may make such a setup far inferior to a heatsink.

[Madclicker]

Gosh, you guys are way too anal about sinking heat from these, 'peltier cooler' whoa! I am running 2 of my drives wide open. all 3 drives have just p1 heatsinks. They have fans, but I've not connected them yet. I will when I close everything up.

[MrWild]

Originally Posted by Madclicker Gosh, you guys are way too anal about sinking heat from these,

What is anal about a bucket of ice water? This seemed simplest by far!