part 1.4 : cooling and completion!

I finally finished to put together the tester and charger system! By itself it would probably deserve a project category on it own but I’m lazy and tired so for now, it is what it is.

Last time I left off with a pretty usable system but it was a bit too warm to my taste. I ended up plugging a set of 120mm fans behind while I decided what I would do for the final cooling.

I thought of using 4x 40x40x10mm fans to cool off the charge circuit and 1-2x 80x80x10mm fan(s) for the PSU but it would have been 2+ weeks to wait for delivery and I got impatient. So I ended up doing a design with the 2x 120mm fans, ( which could be changed if they’re not strong enough in the long term) and that provides a decent airflow.

Since the fans are running on 12v instead of my initial design of 5v fans, I had to plan a boost converter in the line. Lucky for me, I have some really small one that would do just fine.

According to the documentation, with a 5v input, I can have a 0.5A load at 12v, which is about twice the load my 2 fans have, which means I still can put more power hungry fans if needed ( I doubt I will need it ). I ended up putting a small heatsink on the boost converter in case it gets hot but I don’t think it was necessary. Also, the support for it is based on the top plates, with melted tabs to hold the board in place. Another cool ‘feature’ that I didn’t thought of until it was time to assemble it was the fact that if I remove one side, I can flip the fan on the side to have access to the stuff behind.

And finally, the assembled project in all it greatness!

I think that is the end of that part of the project. Now I need to test another 500 cells… #SendHelp!

To be continued…