homemade battery cooling station

[zeek_RC]

So I've been out of the whole RC car scene for probably close to a 1 1/2 to 2 years due to college and traveling over the summer. I have several trucks, S-Maxx, Rustler, TLT-1 converted to a rock crawler, Mini-T, Blade CX2. All of them, except for the Blade CX2, are highly modified. The only one I have raced is the Mini-T because it gives me something to do during the downtime in the winter.

For all the racers out there you know that the batteries can get quite warm even hot to the touch if they are discharged and charged constantly. Even those who don't race know batteries can get warm when they are used back to back. I only have two batteries for my Mini-T so when I finish a race I try and let it cool down some before I begin charging. But sometimes there isn't enough time. And because I'm in college, I can't always go out and buy some of the newest things to keep my trucks going, which would include a batter coolig station.

So enough of me rambling on about nothing... I'll get to the point of the whole thread.

I had some spare parts laying around the house and decided to do something with them. I had two fans I pulled out of computers, a board, some heatshrink, and a charger for a battery from a Wal-Mart bought RC car from years ago. After racing this last thursday I decided to make a battery cooling station that I could use while charging any of my batteries. So after some sniping here and there, soldering there and here, I built myself a battery cooling station that moves some serious air for the size of it. Granted it doesn't look pretty but I don't care. It gets the job down.

There's really no point to this just decided to share what I had built. Might give some of you other guys some ideas.

Feel free to leave feedback.

Zach

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g13/zeek_RC/100_0315.jpg
http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g13/zeek_RC/100_0317.jpg
http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g13/zeek_RC/100_0320.jpg

You can actually hear the air blowing across the mic on the camera.
http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g13/zeek_RC/th_100_0321.jpg (http://s52.photobucket.com/albums/g13/zeek_RC/?action=view&current=100_0321.flv)

[Cope57]

Quite a few years ago at a local track, I seen a battery cooling stand which was made from metal coat hangers, and had two fans similar to those you have.

The stand was coated with some rubber paint or coating, and the fans were underneath blowing upwards toward where the batteries sit. The batteries were attached to 10 bulbs in series, which drawn about 2 amps each at a total of 20 amps.

It was one of the neatest cooling / discharge stands I have seen made from scratch.

Yours is pretty cool also, it just reminded me of the stand I seen.

Good job with your cooling station, I am sure you will probably build upon it, and end up with something just as cool. (pun intended)

I do not have a cooling station, but I do use a light bulb discharger, and let the batteries sit a while before I use them again. Maybe I will make a cooling station something like yours since I believe I have a few fans lying around somewhere...

Do you happen to know what amps the fans draw? I was just thinking if the fans could be a battery discharger, and a cooler at the same time. :confused:

[tadium54]

very inginuitiove. just one tip - to increase the cooling ability, get some spare esc heat sinks and attach them to the base. letting your battery cool on that will help i think.

[zeek_RC]

Thanks guys for your input. I was going to build it out of scrap aluminum or sheet metal but i didn't have enough of either so thats why i had to use the wood board. the fans draw about .1 amps so if you are going to use them as a discharger and a cooking station you would need several to make it worthwhile as a discharger. i'm not sure if i have any heatSINKS laying around. but if i do I'll have to see how much they help with cooling. i think next time i use my cooling station i'm going to take a difference of temperature of the batteries both on and off the station.

Sorry for any misspelling, punctuation or grammatical errors. I typed this from my phone during class.

Thanks again guys.

Zach