Thread: Cold in a Can
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Unread 23-06-2002, 22:17
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Design in better cooling instead! (was Re: Cold in a Can)
Posted by Thomas A. Frank.

Engineer on team #121, The Islanders/Rhode Warrior, from Middletown (RI) High School and Naval Undersea Warfare Center.

Posted on 1/5/2000 4:06 PM MST


In Reply to: Re: Cold in a Can posted by Lora Knepper on 12/17/99 3:21 PM MST:



Hello All;

In our early years in FIRST, we used cold spray. We even used dry ice at one point. Eventually, we came to realize that if you put in proper cooling air flow, you don't need to take these types of extreme actions, and can thus avoid the risk and bother.

Aquatread had the supplied fan blowing directly across the drivetrain motors, speed controllers, and circuit breakers - they never got hot.

RW I sucked cool air off the floor and blew it directly across the Tekin's (remember them :-)) and the drill motors. Worked OK, but boy, did we suck up a load of crud from the carpet (we didn't really want to be a vacuum cleaner, it just worked out that way).

RW II initially used the supplied fan to blow across the drive motors...then I saw someone at a regional using spare fans from the Victor's (and Eric confirmed this was legal), so I replaced the large single fan with a pair of small fans to cool the drive motors. Even after an hour's operation, they never overheated.

Now, we DID make up a small fan/battery thingy with a couple of ducts to continue blowing cooling air across the motors when we didn't have the main battery on line...which is something I recommend to everyone. If it's good enough for the astronauts, it's good enough for use, right?

This year? Who knows :-)


Tom Frank


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