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  1. #1
    Technologist Stigern's Avatar
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    Active cooling for the ramps board?

    Anyone here who use active cooling for the ramps board?

    I'm thinking of attaching a small fan to blow over the board, those small heatsinks are getting very hot!

  2. #2
    Engineer-in-Training
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    I ended up taking one of the included fans with the kit and just zip-tieing it to the side of the board. It's not a perfect solution, but it at least provides moving air over the board.

  3. #3
    Staff Engineer printbus's Avatar
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    I haven't gotten around to installing the fan yet, but I printed a pair of these brackets to use with the RAMPS board - http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:145946

  4. #4
    Engineer-in-Training TopJimmyCooks's Avatar
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    I was having problems running ~8 hour prints via pronterface - printer would just stop moving at a random point several hours in and stay hot. Pronterface showed a random "k" in the terminal. Research showed this problem is related to the ramps board getting too hot and disrupting serial communication. I have solved this with a ramps fan. The stepper driver heat sinks were hot to the touch and now with a 40mm fan on a quick and dirty mount they run cool to the touch. I recommend running a ramps fan of some type. Due to my wiring runs, I couldn't use the four legged mounts that have the fan facing the board. I had to do a mount off to one side.

  5. #5
    Engineer-in-Training gmay3's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by TopJimmyCooks View Post
    I was having problems running ~8 hour prints via pronterface - printer would just stop moving at a random point several hours in and stay hot. Pronterface showed a random "k" in the terminal. Research showed this problem is related to the ramps board getting too hot and disrupting serial communication.
    Wow that's pretty wild. I haven't had a print go that long yet. I'm surprised that the little heatsinks haven't fallen off with all the expanding and contracting. I guess that little 3M double sided tape square provided with the heatsinks is pretty robust!

  6. #6
    Staff Engineer printbus's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by TopJimmyCooks View Post
    I was having problems running ~8 hour prints via pronterface - printer would just stop moving at a random point several hours in and stay hot. Pronterface showed a random "k" in the terminal. Research showed this problem is related to the ramps board getting too hot and disrupting serial communication. I have solved this with a ramps fan...
    This suggests to me that it may also be a good idea to mount the MEGA2560 board on spacers or standoffs, not flush to the wood frame like the build instructions say. The spacers or standoffs would allow at least some convection airflow behind the MEGA2560 board to help minimize any hot spots there. For something to affect USB communications, the temperature sensitivity has to actually be on the MEGA2560 board, and it gets essentially no airflow because of the boxed-in nature of the RAMPS board and the shield connectors in between the two boards.

    Don't get me wrong - keeping the stepper drivers cool is still a smart thing to do. There just may be more than one thing going on. For stepper drivers to cause the MEGA2560 to mess up, heat would have to soak from the stepper driver board, to the RAMPS board, and then to the MEGA2560 board.

  7. #7
    Engineer-in-Training gmay3's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by printbus View Post
    This suggests to me that it may also be a good idea to mount the MEGA2560 board on spacers or standoffs, not flush to the wood frame like the build instructions say.
    Good point printbus, do you think clough42's printable LCD spacers would provide enough of a gap to use on the RAMPS as well?

    http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:335589

  8. #8
    Engineer-in-Training TopJimmyCooks's Avatar
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    My little fan holder also added 3-4 mm of space under the arduino. The bolts are barely threaded into the nuts and I need to replace them with longer ones.

    I don't have conclusive proof, it just worked for me - went from 100% failure rate after 4 hours of printing - sample of 3 or four prints, to 100% success, sample of 2 prints. I would try this before any other fix. Note, not an issue when printing from SD, those ran fine all the way through. printing from SD is the best way to go for long prints especially if your pc is in any way unstable.

    I originally looked at having the fan try to cover the arduino as well but the headers and connectors really box it in completely. for a permanent solution I would like to figure out a mount that can cover the stepper drivers and also direct some airflow between the arduno and the plywood frame.

  9. #9
    Staff Engineer printbus's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by gmay3 View Post
    Good point printbus, do you think clough42's printable LCD spacers would provide enough of a gap to use on the RAMPS as well?
    Anything is likely better than nothing! IIRC, the LCD takes spacers that are in the neighborhood of 3/16 inch so that should help. It may depend what you have for bolts, since you may need to use longer ones than stock when the spacer gets added.

    FYI - if you're into openscad, here's a parametric spacer that you can adjust to your liking - http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5314

  10. #10
    Engineer-in-Training gmay3's Avatar
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    Thanks printbus! I haven't used SCAD yet but I can definitely see the benefit for some parts! This would be an easy introduction!

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