blog; Motor Controller Options for 2015

[RandomStyuff]

To all those talking about thermal paste, I'm not sure how exactly you intend on applying it. Contrary to the popular belief, thermal paste is a much less successful conductor of heat than Aluminium. The purpose of thermal paste in computers is because nothing is ever perfectly flat, and when you put an aluminium or copper heatsink on a processor, you get small airgaps between the heatsink and the processor. These airgaps are not very good at conducting heat (because air isn't very good at conducting heat), and therefore thermal paste is used to replace those gaps with a more conductive than air material.

Now, unless you plan on using a heatsink on your robot for your speed controllers, or plan on making your entire mounting surface a huge heatsink(which I don't think is a good idea if there is a heating issue, with wires and other things on it) I wouldn't recommend the use of thermal paste. Covering the speed controllers with thermal paste would actually reduce their heat dissipation abilities.

I seriously doubt that any usage within FIRST would require thermal paste. I might mount a large fan in a way that causes airflow in the areas where speed controllers are mounted, that would probably increase heat dissipation capabilities.


NOTE: I'm not an engineer with experience in heat management or anything like that, but one of the sponsors my team had when I was in high school made air conditioning units for aerospace purposes (cooling engines and things like that) - many of the mentors worked there and they liked to give us a little bit of a view into their work