Active cooling - fans

  I use these fans on older ham radio units...quiet and most are rfi free.

I'm thinking of putting them where traditionally the 9V battery would go...

I have built a number of locos using these fans to cool the electronics. I mount them close to the roof vents and have them blowing down on the electronics.

Generally speaking, these fans will survive a little overvoltage without harm. You can run them on half wave track power if running in command mode. If running in conventional mode, you can put a capacitor across the fan motor to increase speed a bit, but be careful. If the capacitor is too large, the fans will get too high voltage in command mode.

RB,

Thanks for the encouraging news...  I just got a brain storm (yes, it hurt); if you put them under the cooling fans, do they spin?

Thanks,

Mario

Yes they do.

Really cool idea.  Actual rotating exhaust fans doing a real job on the engine.

Ok, noe the tough question. 

Do I blow it out or suck it in?

I'd like to blow out as to draw cool air across the electronics, but also active cooling blowing on the heat source might be better. 

ThoughtS?

Mario, I'm really interested in where you attach it to the board. Maybe the dc motor output. They would rev up and down with the motor.

I want to use one of these fans to blow air up, through and over some seuthe units. I think they might work really well.

Ron

Mario, either direction of airflow will help with cooling, you want to move air.  It's probably more effective to blow on the electronics, but I'd mount them the way that makes the fans spin on the shell, that will probably be the exhaust direction.

Thanks, John, I agree with you.

In my recollection, the room in the car body would mostly be where the TMCC/Legacy battery 9V space would occupy, so its probably going to be at the back, anyway. So the fans would benefit from the airflow, but I don't know about the electronics as much, unless I blow forward.  I could always take out the smoke units...  What voltage do they run on?

Thanks,

Mario

Take out the smoke units?  Blasphemy!   Why would you do that?

Any air you move around or through the shell will do something for cooling.

I generally want to blow the air downwards onto the electronics. If you blow air upwards, there is a risk of sucking trash from the layout surface into the loco and into the gears and motors.

Hmmm.

I never thought of that.  Sucking up dust and dirt from the roadbed and through the frame into the electronics and such.

I can't imagine that it would create that much of a draft, but all it'll take is one metallic fiber or foil piece to short out a board.

Looks like down it is, probably behind the rear truck openings in the frame.  We shall see...

Thanks,

Mario

The amount of suction from a tiny fan like that will be insignificant.  You might get a little pollen in your locomotive, but I don't see any risk of sucking up something larger than a dust mite.

I finally got around to ordering the fans, and they came in...

We shall see how they work.

Thanks,
Mario

You don't want to place this aft of the smoke unit especially if your sucking and blowing down.  The fan will pull the residue in and blow it on the electronics.  G