[Mike Betts]

Fluffy,

There is a thought among many engineers in FIRST that, if you are not pushing the envelope, you are not being competitive...

Our experience:

Over the years, we have mounted Victors in almost every orientation conceivable, packed them very very close and enclosed them with polycarbonate covers which violated the 2" rule.

Two years ago, we even had victors with intermittent cooling fans because the students crimped ring lugs on the fan wires without properly stripping the wire's insulation. The intermittent fans were not discovered until we had competed in two regionals and the Atlanta championship (we fixed it post season).

Our team has never lost a victor due to overheating.

My recommendations:

Space Victors no closer than 1/2" apart, side to side, and 2" apart, front to back (this is more due to 10AWG wire access than to cooling), and leave 2" above the fan before locating your cover.

Do put a protective cover over the Victors. Flotsam (bits of aluminum from drilling, et cetera) from people working on the robot is the #1 cause of Victor failure that I have seen. The trade off between restricting air flow and protecting the electronics from debris is, to me, a no-brainer.

JMHO.

Mike