Active cooling for the ramps board?

[Stigern]

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!

[MiniMadRyan]

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.

[printbus]

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

[printbus]

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

OK - finally got around to installing a fan with these brackets. I wanted to center the fan over the stepper drivers, but this leads to one leg that doesn't fit the edge of the board well because of the servos connector block on RAMPS. I left it that way, but a better fit would require either increasing the height of the notch in the leg of that corner or moving the fan down so that leg is below the reset button. Those without a heat bed relay should likely do the latter anyway since it'll add airflow for the heat bed MOSFET heatsink, but at some loss at airflow for the Z axis stepper motor driver.

As another option, some tweaks to AbuMaia's Y-motor fan bracket might allow it to be bolted to the faceplate of the frame and used as RAMPS fan mount... http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:498414

[AbuMaia]

... some tweaks to AbuMaia's Y-motor fan bracket might allow it to be bolted to the faceplate of the frame and used as RAMPS fan mount... http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:498414

I don't think I see how this would work. What do you mean by "bolted to the faceplate"?

[printbus]

I don't think I see how this would work. What do you mean by "bolted to the faceplate"?

Yeah, it's a stretch. My point is that rather than hassle with the brackets that somewhat fit over the RAMPS board, all we need is a bracket that can mount the fan to the back side of the vertical face of the printer frame and suspend the fan over RAMPS. Maybe using something like the 3M adhesive tape so you wouldn't have to worry about screws or bolt heats sticking through the front side of the frame and getting in the way of the wheels on the vertical rails.

[TopJimmyCooks]

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.

[gmay3]

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!

[printbus]

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.

[gmay3]

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