Heatsinks on vesc is useless!

For the same amount of work yes but mostly we are using more voltage for more work

Yep - totally a game changer - higher voltage = lower amps! But not one VESC or anything hardware has to do with.

This is something I have been intending to create once our mill is up an running. It will be interesting to see if it increases the capability of the VESC with a more direct connection to the base of the fets.

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I think a low amp, high voltage system likely dose not need heatsinks if the motor/gearing is efficient. I needed them, because they way I was running my carvons was not efficient, I never got close to 85% of my no load speed, as that would be way too fast. With your motors even @Hummie, the heat sinks had a positive effect. You never had issues because you have good airflow i.e. they are duct tapped to the bottom of your board. But if you enclose them, they will get hot.

good to know. I may have a carvon build in the pipe.

actually theyre pretty contained in bubble wrap and tape these days and cant be seen. wish my batteries were as well as they’re all dying from shrapnel again.

the no-load speed is constantly changing based on your throttle and what percent it sends to the motor of the battery voltage and if your motors are big enough and the load not too big they will be near it. the carvon are big and you probably were. I think more the reason carvon get the vesc hot is because theyre such high kv it takes more amps for them to create torque.

but you get the v2.5? the lower kv should run fine, speaking from experience

Its coming back to me now why I abandoned the custom heat sink. I didn’t want such a large positive terminal exposed in my system. :confused:

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Is there a non conductive material that could still be used to dissipate heat or at least as a transitional material to the heat sink?

i think heat and electricity conductibility go pretty hand in hand except for some fancy pastes and silicones.

chaka is that dangerous is that why you dont want that? to touch? what on the board is dangerous to touch at 12s? Have you touched 12s!? I mean possibly shorted across something with 50v. had your body in circuit with that and you dont zing

Lol someone should make a water cooled system for the VESC :joy:

If the Vesc Enclosure itself was the Heatsink, then it would be directly exposed to the wind for superior cooling, …seperate from the battery enclosure.

thought about it, but you don’t want liquid in your board, waiting to be spilled.

i think we will need it if we start racing eboards competitively. I have had some excellent results cooling 18650’s with embedded cooling line. It wasn’t pretty but it worked really well. The challenge is fitting everything inside a deck. :wink:

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Can’t we build a Heat Sink “Evolve style” , which is exposed to the wind ??

Just having Wind cooling the Fins,… seems to me would make a big difference?

Chaka didn’t mean to step on your heatsink progress with the over-the-top title. I thought it might lure more people. When u say u don’t want to heatsink the bottom of the fets because of the large positive terminal are u afraid people would short the board? I’m looking to get the most cooling possible as I’ll be running one hub motor and anticipate a lot of amps and heat

Yea having one giant exposed positive terminal is never a good idea. Super easy to short. When I rode with you last time it didn’t seem that your VESC got that hot. Given, you were on a dual setup, but I don’t imagine it’ll get that much hotter on a single especially running 12s. I have some raspberry pi heatsinks you can throw on the mosfets if you want. Since you don’t run an enclosure the wind hitting the sinks directly should help control temperatures pretty well.

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On the original post, @Hummie mentioned the IRFP7530 MOSFET which happens to be the exact MOSFET im using in my EBoard Switch and doing the math the 7530 wouldn’t need a heatsink at 30A continuous in a 63°C environment at its max RDSON which is usually around 1.65Miliohms not 2 which is what I based the calculations off of. Anyways the 7530 would be a great substitute for the VESC fets if it ever becomes necessary to increase the max VESC amperage. Also people where worried about heatsinks possibly shorting out things because they would be live connections, but you could just use non conductive thermal past to fix that problem, thats what most people do for adding heatsinks to fets because the flange is usually a drain as well. IRFP7530PbF Datasheet

*EDIT: just realized that the MOSFET’s used on the VESC currently are 7530 versions though there actually better, or at least have a lower RDSON of only 1.4mOhms and a C/W of 40. So yeah pretty much disregard what I said about the 7530 as a replacement for the current fets. Though the 7530 is still a great mosfet for other applications.

I guess he doesn’t work for the motherboard companies that have been doing this now for about 15+ years with all the added research they’ve done in the field?

Hey bud you can get non-conductive thermal compound to separate the heatsink from the conductive material.

Edit: Something like this: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/like/182063660930?lpid=107&chn=ps

Yes this isn’t a Vesc, but I think it does support the notion that heatsinks can be beneficial.

I know you cant read much into this because there is nothing to suggest they are the same esc but I can only conclude the HV160 and HV160 lite are identical besides cases and heatsinks. Hv160 requires 5mph airflow for rating, Hv160 lite 20mph airflow for its rating.

http://www.castlecreations.com/products/phoenix-ice2-hv.html