I’m from team 2079, Alarm Robotics (website coming soon), and we are wondering if any type of cooling is allowed. Preferably water cooling, but if that’s not allowed, is fan cooling allowed?
Thanks!
Of course, we don’t know what the 2013 rules might allow, but for 2012 fan cooling is generally allowed (using KOP fans) and water cooling could be allowed so long as the water cant get out and a legal motor powers the pump (if any). Check the rules for your specific circumstance.
Are you sure they would need to use a legal motor? In 2010 didn’t teams use vaccum’s that didn’t use legal motors?
No, they did not.
Nope, these motors were replaced with kit motors. Mostly FP motors, if I recall correctly.
Hmmmm…cooling…but maybe not water cooling…hmmmm…
How about Dry Ice…no water to clean up and the fog factor is
kinda cool. You might not wanna hold it with bare hands though.
Echoing the post about not knowing what 2013 will hold, we can be fairly certain the ban on dangerous and or harmful materials will stand. I don’t think a dry ice cooling system would be legal, as effective as it may be.
Some teams machined heatsinks, but they are near useless unless cooled by high flow fans.
My team keeps a small container with rags and ice in it, and if we ever need to cool our motors before/after/during a match, we wrap the motors in the rags. They’re really cold due to the ice, and relatively dry (Just wring them out before applying). We’ve zip tied them to the CIMs before going out for matches if we thought the motors would heat up a lot. Works great!
That sounds interesting…I’ll have to pick up some ice on my way to class sometime so I can try that out. D’you use dry or regular ice in the bucket?
Regular. Dry ice would be great, but we always have that one student who chews on ice, and if they don’t hear us say it’s dry ice, things may go badly…
Pretty much regular because safety.
That makes things simpler. Less of a hassle to get my hands on (no pun intended.)
Because the motor cooling is mostly limited by heat transfer to the case from the armature, and not by heat transfer from the case to the outside air, you will mostly just make the surface of the motor cooler, not the parts that you actually care about cooling (regardless of the method used).
How to cool your robot in 30 seconds:
- Get a can of compressed air
- Turn it upside down
*]Spray motors with coolant for 30 seconds
Plus, you shouldn’t keep dry ice in an air tight cooler. Your cooler could pop. In addition, normal ice is easier to obtain.