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30A DELUXE OVER TEMP

I live in florida, you all know the temperature here is closer to hell than any other place. So even in my garage it gets hot especially the Controller, and it is only drawing 13.4 amps per leg on 220 volts.

Is it possible to add a small fan?

and what is the best place to put it and where would it be the air intake?

The only problem it will no longer be water proof.


2 people have this problem

i also should add that my enclosure is a 6x6x6 plastic conduit box made by Cantex.
If it would help, I can post my thermal pictures, or a link to my dropbox acct.

 

This is bothersome to me too.
For instance, the outside air temp is 86F, and the internal temp is 64F  withOUT anything running... it is in sleep mode and has been for a couple of days.
If I were to start charging, the temperature would climb to over 70F and shutdown the charge controller due to over temp.
For a test, I opened the enclosure up while charging and the temp dropped closer to 50F, then I used a small table fan and directed the air flow at the controller PCB.  The power supply seems to be the hottest thing, and in my box, it is below the display.
I am going to use my Flir and take some pics of the boards.
I am also thinking of replacing the switcher on the pcb with a couple of external switchers so I can move them around to find a good position.
I might also try moving the controller to another location in my box, to get it away from the LCD/tempsensor, to reduce local heating of the temp sensor.  I can't believe that the power supply is running this hot at idle, no relay pulled, system in sleep mode.

 

What firmware are you running? Versions 3.11.3 and later do not start to throttle until 65C. 


The temperature sensor is on the back of the LCD. If the sun is shining on the LCD it will warm up and provide a higher than normal temperature reading.



Is there any update on this? I have one with the AC contactor. it only does this when its in the sun. It slows way down and displays the temperature. This time it said 55c. What can I do about this? It has worked well for 2 years now as long as i keep it out of the sun. Would putting in the dc contactor help?

The heat comes from a few places, The power supplies on the controller put off some waste heat (about 1w at max load), the 2 flameproof resistors on the AC_Test lines also radiate a couple watts. The wiring, connectors, fuses, relay coil, relay connectors all put off some heat as well. The higher the current the more heat.


A heatsink inside the enclosure will not do anything, it just moves the hear from 1 place to another. The ambient temperature sensor in built into the display.


The first thing to check is the firmware version. The original firmware 3.7.8 is very conservative, the latest version 3.11.3 is much better. I would also check that the connectors are well crimped and secure, as a high resistance connection can generate a lot of heat when current is high.

Thanks for the reply.

No, the relays are not getting hot, the Universal EVSE Controller is the one that gets very hot and the displays flickers a warning ( don't remember what exactly it displayed )  and it stops charging, I was thinking of putting a heat sink on the Universal EVSE Controller but the display won't let me, no room in it.

In my case the thing that generates the heat is the relay.  If you are experiencing shutdowns due to temperature, you could relocate the relay to another place (if that is what it is).  I see that it is the relay because the temperature goes up when charging and goes down when not.  The only change in the system is the state of the relay.  Obviously there is some heat loss through the wire but that is pretty small.

Adding a fan or cutting holes is not a good idea. Not only does the sealed enclosure keep water out, but it keeps oxygen from getting in if overheating does occur. No oxygen means no fire and a safe shutdown.

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