Author Topic: anyone used this fan driven decoder cooler?  (Read 14337 times)

gregeusa

  • Engineer
  • ***
  • Posts: 93
    • Greg's web site
Lots of tips and techniques on my site: www.elmassian.com contact me greg@elmassian.com

JRad

  • Conductor
  • ****
  • Posts: 118
Re: anyone used this fan driven decoder cooler?
« Reply #1 on: April 19, 2022, 06:38:25 PM »
Overkill in my opinion.

Unless you plan to push the current capacity limits you shouldn't need it.

gregeusa

  • Engineer
  • ***
  • Posts: 93
    • Greg's web site
Re: anyone used this fan driven decoder cooler?
« Reply #2 on: April 20, 2022, 06:39:18 PM »
clearly there was a need at least in the mind of this distributor
Lots of tips and techniques on my site: www.elmassian.com contact me greg@elmassian.com

William Brillinger

  • Dispatcher (Admin)
  • Conductor
  • *****
  • Posts: 1342
    • Precision Design Co.
Re: anyone used this fan driven decoder cooler?
« Reply #3 on: April 20, 2022, 07:00:54 PM »
probably designed for the LM-3S-g which was more power restrictive.
- Bill Brillinger, RPUG Admin

Modeling the BNML in HO Scale, owner of Precision Design Co., and RailPro Dealer.


gregeusa

  • Engineer
  • ***
  • Posts: 93
    • Greg's web site
Re: anyone used this fan driven decoder cooler?
« Reply #4 on: April 20, 2022, 08:05:12 PM »
That could very well be, if I can't get any user feedback here, I can contact the manufacturer, but since he sells it, he might be a bit biased as to the need.  :)

I was trying to see under what conditions it has been needed/used. This distributor is exclusively large scale.

Greg
Lots of tips and techniques on my site: www.elmassian.com contact me greg@elmassian.com

zr1rob

  • Fireman
  • **
  • Posts: 30
Re: anyone used this fan driven decoder cooler?
« Reply #5 on: April 22, 2022, 06:27:20 PM »
a small 5V fan works fine in the Arizona heat.

IMG_2514.JPG

jordanhd87

  • Fireman
  • **
  • Posts: 22
Re: anyone used this fan driven decoder cooler?
« Reply #6 on: June 29, 2022, 07:17:10 PM »
I just bought 5 of these from Robby. I was running my SD70 and SD45 (MU'ed) on Saturday (at a reasonable 50-60% speed) and after about 5-10 minutes the LM-4S-G modules overheated. The conditions were direct sunlight, 88*f, high humidity. I even shortened the train from 35 cars down to 25, turned sound off, slowed the train down, etc. Still got the module overheat warnings on both locomotives. I'll try to remember to report back with the results after installing these and when I run them again in similar conditions.

FYI, here's the link to the manufactures page for this item https://www.ovrailcar.com/online-store/Rail-Pro-Bracket-Mount-with-Fan-and-Heat-Sink-p376391580
« Last Edit: June 29, 2022, 07:32:44 PM by jordanhd87 »

jordanhd87

  • Fireman
  • **
  • Posts: 22
Re: anyone used this fan driven decoder cooler?
« Reply #7 on: July 01, 2022, 01:52:00 PM »
Preliminary results: I installed one in my SD70 that was overheating badly (the USAT motors pull more current than Aristo, so I figured it would be a good locomotive to test first). 90*, cloudy, 50% humidity. I ran it by itself at 100% throttle for about 15 minutes. Albeit not the same conditions as this past weekend (not pulling a load, not sunny), the temperature hovered right around the "GOOD" line on the controller. I even grabbed onto the coupler for a good 30 seconds at a time to shoot the motor current up, did that quite a few times. The temp still stayed around the "GOOD" line. More to come when I have an opportunity to run it on a hot sunny day, but so far it seems promising that my overheating woes will be solved with this thing.

20220701_134702.jpg

(posted edited by admin - Image was FAR too large and was causing an error when loading the page, resizing and re-uploading the image solved the problem.)
« Last Edit: July 01, 2022, 10:09:38 PM by William Brillinger »