Just thought I’d share my morning tinkerings.
So this morning I’ve been playing surgeon with my dremel. I cut out some ventilation holes for the fan vents in my ESCs to peek through.
This box is Bondo polyester resin fiberglass. I got great results using a cylindrical cutting bit at half speed, and moving along very slow like a robot on Thorazine. No threading from the fabric was left showing along the cut because of that, and the holes turned out nice and clean.
I’m just going to seal it in with hot glue for this one, but it’d probably use some kind epoxy and finish it smooth and flush if I was doing this for a customer, possibly even touch up the paint.
Lmao. Looks good! I’m slightly uncomfortable with the idea of putting all of my components in an enclosure with no ventilation, but it seems people are doing it with the VESC (without mosfet heatsinks, no less!). Those ESCs (in your picture) were previously running inside, sealed up?
More or less. There was a slight air gap between the box and the board but it wasn’t splash proof and still didn’t provide enough air. I had them tuned down but they would still get hot and drop the power levels. I think this way they can breath more directly and the box will remain splash proof.
The VESCs allegedly don’t get hot, and the 6-8S dual ESCs I was using before never got hot enough to matter even sealed into this box completely. These guys, however, need a little bit of air it seems.
However when I do build a dual drive system with a pair of VESCs my plan is to mount them both onto a very low profile heat sink and seal it into the box exposing only that to the air and still seal the rest of the box with t-nuts and a silicone gasket.
If the hardware and software and good… You won’t need to open the enclosure especially if your setup is the correct gearing and not being overstressed.
I run my Dual TorqueBoards 12S with no air to the outside world and run for 1-2 hours hard and it gets slightly warm.
VESC doesn’t get hot too so I think it’s just good hardware/software.
6S ESC is smaller and I assume they might get more heat… Usually, they are best with the fans.
I like that idea. Where does the exhaust from the pictured ESCs exit (once sealed up)? Just through the charge port / LED window, or are those sealed up too?
everything else is sealed. Thing about these ESCs and their fans is that the fan is well below the vent holes and isn’t sealed into a particular airflow, so the exhaust goes into the box but also comes back out the front where it meets with cooler air and recircs a bit.
If they keep behaving badly I’ll isolate them inside the box with barriers and add more vent holes in their compartment.
Fans are a pain to work around.
