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!
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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!
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.
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
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.
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!Quote:
Originally Posted by TopJimmyCooks
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by TopJimmyCooks
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.
Good point printbus, do you think clough42's printable LCD spacers would provide enough of a gap to use on the RAMPS as well?Quote:
Originally Posted by printbus
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:335589
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.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by gmay3
FYI - if you're into openscad, here's a parametric spacer that you can adjust to your liking - http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5314
Thanks printbus! I haven't used SCAD yet but I can definitely see the benefit for some parts! This would be an easy introduction!
Or go with something like Rambo electronics that combines the Arduino, the RAMPS, and the stepper drivers all on one board that should be easier to cool. It'll be interesting to see how Rambo works out for those buying the 12-inch i3v that ships with it.Quote:
Originally Posted by TopJimmyCooks
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by printbus
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
Installed a 50mm fan on mine today:
Attachment 3614
I don't think I see how this would work. What do you mean by "bolted to the faceplate"?Quote:
Originally Posted by printbus
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by AbuMaia
There are RAMPS fan holders like this http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:138007 and http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:428066 that clip onto the angled part of the wood frame.
I'm running a used 80mm fan with a bracket I drew up in blender. Mounted it below the RAMPS slight angle forward blowing up on the RAMPS. Drilled holes on the side to mount.