How effective are passive heatsinks on stepper motors in your experience? Temperatures are still within bounds on the printer in question, but long term, the printer will be going in a heated build chamber in the 30-40 degree range, and I’d just like to have some more margin. I’d only be able to put one or two heat sinks on each motor. I have thermal paste I can use to help with heat transfer. Could I expect to see much of an improvement? I suppose I could get fan cooled heat sinks, but that would be quite a bit more work to install.
There would have to be some improvement. Old computers got by with passive heat sinks and many CPU’s ran hot.
How much current are you running through them? If you’re at less than one Amp (say 0.8A) you should be okay.
If it’s a heated build chamber then there should be air flow in and out and things will probably be okay.
Yes, current is set at 900Ma on the Y axis, 580 Ma on X and Z, and 650Ma on the E stepper. Yes, the chamber has circulation fans to keep the temperature at an acceptable level.
Generally I will just throw a fan in anyways, get a 24V one and wire it right into the PSU so that you don’t have to waste a spare fan connector on your mainboard. I usually just angle it so that all of the stepper drivers get a little bit of airflow and that seems to work for me.
I think you misunderstood me. I absolutely have a fan cooling the stepper drivers(12v Noctua 4020). I was referring to the steppers themselves.
Oh my apologies, personally I wouldn’t worry about it too much. As long as you have the voltage dialed in correctly you shouldn’t have any issues with temperatures or anything like that. It will probably end up being more hassle than its worth.
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