Control panel cooling/ventilation fan

[clearwaterbrewer]

Wanting to cool my control panel.

I was thinking of starting with this for $24:
"80mm, 120v Fan, Filter and Thermostat Cord"

https://www.gardteconline.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=372

I am thinking of having it suck from the one side near the bottom, and then maybe exit from a similar filter screen near the top on the other side, possibly with a shroud or awning type of cover on both that keeps a stray splash from going in.....

anybody know where to get these vent covers/shrouds?

anybody have pics and experiences?

 

[mateomtb]

Sorry no solution from me, but I'm thinking about it too. I'm did a similar thing and haven't figured out how to cover my vent holes which I put on both sides of the top corners. I think I'll have to make some sort of awning thing like the exterior clothes dryer vent looks. I plan on putting a whole plexi divider / shield in between my panel for extra insurance too.

 

[P-J]

I'm sorry for this - But - I think you are making a very serious mistake when you mount you SSRs directly within your controller. It is my 'opinion' that they should be mounted to heat sinks. The best of which is if the heat sink fins are exposed to the exterior of your control panel. I believe that, in your setup, your SSRs will not be able to shed the heat rapidly enough under load and will then destroy themselves. No heat sink? No survival!

Just my very humble opinion.

 

[BSD_Glass]

I ran a glass studio for years. When I built my control panels, we didn't know about externally mounting the heat sinks, so I put in fans and allowed for makeup airflow to cool the SSR's.

It worked okay, but I did toast several SSR's over the years. This was on a 50 amp electric glass furnace and was on 24/7 when it was on, often for months at a time.

If it was me, I'd find a way to mount the heatsinks externally. Even if you have to mount the SSR's and heatsinks in a new "satellite" enclosure due to space limitations in your current box, I think you'll have better SSR longevity than fan cooling.

Just my $.02

I've offered to rework the control panels of the person who bought my studio, but she isn't interested in my going rate and I'm not interested in doing it for free. I know she's burned up at least one SSR since she bought the place in December.

BSD

 

[bagpiperjosh]

I'm sorry for this - But - I think you are making a very serious mistake when you mount you SSRs directly within your controller. It is my 'opinion' that they should be mounted to heat sinks. The best of which is if the heat sink fins are exposed to the exterior of your control panel. I believe that, in your setup, your SSRs will not be able to shed the heat rapidly enough under load and will then destroy themselves. No heat sink? No survival!

Just my very humble opinion.

i agree. and use thermal compound between the heat sink and ssrs. i had one crap out on me just because i didn't use the thermal compound

 

[clearwaterbrewer]

I'm sorry for this - But - I think you are making a very serious mistake when you mount you SSRs directly within your controller. It is my 'opinion' that they should be mounted to heat sinks. The best of which is if the heat sink fins are exposed to the exterior of your control panel. I believe that, in your setup, your SSRs will not be able to shed the heat rapidly enough under load and will then destroy themselves. No heat sink? No survival!

Just my very humble opinion.

P-J -
If you notice, mateomtb hasn't even screwed the SSR's down, I think he is doing layout. and I DO see heatsinks under them (gotta look closely)
(I laid out them like this a couple times before using Visio to finalize my panel...)

Regarding heatsinks inside the panel like we have... (you may not be able to see them, but they are nice, big 40A heatsinks).. I have them lined up to allow flow for my fan.

BSD_Glass -

Regarding not having heatsinks inside the panel.. well, works fine for me with the door ajar when brewing, but then again I do not have 50A running for months in what is probably a very hot environment considering it is running a glass furnace.. I have 20A average for 2 hours... at 1W per Amp, I have 40W (using SSR's on both legs).. Question... Is your computer CPU heatsink mounted outside your Computer? No... it has a fan... How many watts is your computer power supply supplying and is being dissipated inside? Most are a whole lot more than my panel, I can guarantee that... These are industrial components, made to work in harsher environments than your cable box, and go put your hand on that... my heatsinks get about that temperature with the door ajar...


Basically, I am saying that I will be damned if I will make some abortion of a sub-panel... that would be just plain 'rigged' in my opinion... my panel looks nice and professional, and I have worked as an Electrical Engineer at caterpillar engine testing facilities where many, many SSR's worked just fine for *thousands* of hours mounted inside a panel that was inside another enclosure, with just a heatsink and a cooling fan...

 

[amurphyz]

How is having a heat sink rigged, but having to leave the door open to keep components cool not rigged?? Gong back to you computer reference, is your computer ajar? No, the entire enclosed with all components working at peak wattage, voltage and amperage were taken into consideration when "engineering" what cooling process was needed. I have a liquid cooled computer, but my ebrewery is air cooled, through the use of a heat sink, exposed to the outside air and a computer fan to move air across the back side of the mounting surface of the SSR's. How can you cool a hot surface with hot air circulating around the internal components? The SSR's in the above pic may not be permanently mounted yet, I just think someone had an observation and politely gave a very educated opinion about it, not a finger pointing you HAVE to do this or that, most are here to help, not ridicule and belittle.

 

[CidahMastah]

For $36 I was able to get a big nice heat sink (see my avatar) and tap and install all my SSRs in the kal design fashion. I could have installed 6 ssrs on it. with both legs running at 5500 watts it is barely warm to the touch. Previously with the 40 amp sinks as you described I was getting 190F on the fins.

Just saying that the better engineered design IMO is Kals (and my control panel door stays shut during brewing).

Certainly isn't the best safety practice to brew with your panel door open.

 

[clearwaterbrewer]

I included plans in my original build to add the fan(s), but was looking for the right solution before I drilled holes... I have drilled and welded back enough holes already...

Per the *topic* of the post am looking for a shroud or examples of what people have done, and someone else is also... the *topic* is NOT "should I have external heatsinks or internal"

Actually my computer door is off right now... so it is ajar, LOL... My computer was bought as pieces... with millions of a-la-carte computers out there, you think they all were engineered? If you have a sealed box and do a halfway decent job of drawing in and exhausting air, you can dissipate heat very easily. Your computer is still air cooled if you have a radiator on it... water cooling just removes that air cooling by one step... actually, if you count the heatsink, it is 'copper-cooled'.. ooooh... high-tech...

I never stated anything that would require a response like "How can you cool a hot surface with hot air circulating around the internal components?" Did you READ my original post? I am introducing outside air (the same outside air you are using) with the force of a fan, over the heatsinks and then back out of the panel.. With the right design, this can be *better* that external heatsinks

It looked like P-J missed that the SSR's had heat sinks mounted to them, reading his response.... I *politely* pointed out that they had heat sinks on them... I have great respect for P-J and his opinion "The best of which is if the heat sink fins are exposed to the exterior of your control panel."

BSD_glass pointed out a situation in which SSR's were blown... in a different environment than most of ours..

If someone wants to start a thread on "should I have external heatsinks or internal", I will be happy to participate... Please let this thread be about the installation of fans and shrouds on boxes built by those of us who are confident that we can cool our SSR's properly with moving outside air into the box and using convection rather than the mostly stationary air outside the box and using radiant heat dissipation.

 

[kosmokramer]

For $36 I was able to get a big nice heat sink (see my avatar) and tap and install all my SSRs in the kal design fashion

Where did you find that heat sink? I have been looking for one

 

[amurphyz]

So the box is ajar, or sealed up and doing a good job of drawing and exhausting air?

 

[clearwaterbrewer]

A quote from the Crydom brochure:
http://www.crydom.com/en/Tech/crydom_hs.pdf
"THE GLOBAL EXPERT IN SOLID STATE RELAY TECHNOLOGY"

"Significant improvement in Heat Sink performance can be achieved by
providing forced air flow over the Heat Sink’s surface area. Fans delivering
relatively small volumes of air can reduce the Heat Sink’s thermal
impedance substantially, thereby improving its efficiency and consequently
the SSRs reliability."

and "The next step is to determine the maximum operating ambient temperature
(TA) in °C that the SSR will be expected to operate in its application. The
ambient value should be the ambient air temperature of the local
environment such as the interior of a control cabinet where the SSR and
Heat Sink are to be mounted. In this example, assume TA of 55 °C."

WOW... Crydom discussing mounting a SSR and heatsink in a cabinet? Someone should tell them it is a bad idea!