I've build a box for my ramps 1.3 electronic with 2x 40mm fans on

3D Printing
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1

I’ve build a box for my ramps 1.3 electronic with 2x 40mm fans on the top, just above axis radiators.

Working perfefctly in my garage, at 40mm/s print speed.

But during a demo, in a show room, print failed because of pololu temperature protection.

Seems i’m in the limit in a room at 30 degree celcius :frowning:

I have two options :

  1. decrease pololu power to decrease temp and not falling in protection
    Or
  2. find a great cooling system.

For the first option, i guess i’m also in the mechanical limit, if i decrease power, i will have some mechanical freeze because of not enough current power.

So could you give me some ways about efficient cooling systems to print with no problem until 45 degree celcius in a room ?

Thanks to the community for your help and thr good brainstorming to come =-)

2

i’m running into the same problem on my bot as well. I’ve got a 80mm fan blowing sideways over the board as well as fairly large heatsinks on the driver chips - do you have some on your drivers as well? Those work wonders when it comes to cranking up the current those little pololus handle.
If nothing helps, though, you can get DRV8825-based boards, which are a bit more expensive, but will pump out current until your motors boil.

3

Theoretically, the highest efficiency in heatsinks is achieved if you blow air through the fins. So best case, would be air ducted so that it only travelled through the heatsinks, from a cool source, to the area where hot air expels. That’s not practical, but make sure your system has air blowing in, not air sucking out. Also make sure that there is air movement across the sinks. The best orientation would be all the heatsinks with the fins along the same direction in series. A fan on each end of the line of pololus, one blowing and one sucking, so it pulls cool air across the sinks quickly. This would concentrate the high airflow over the pololus.

Good luck

4

@Thomas_Sanladerer I have little heatsinks on my drivers, no big ones. Can you detail what is a difference using drv8825 based board, habe you some board recommandation ?

@Eric_Moy thx for the luck :slight_smile:

5

@Nicolas_Georgemel DRV8825 boards are drop-in compatible to A4988 boards, while being able to supply much more current without overheating. Their inner workings regarding microstepping (up to 32x instead of 16x) are quite a bit different, too, often resulting in better accuracy.