ESC\Motor fan covers. How well do they work?

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Cooking splatter shields are cheap and provide plenty of material for several fans! ($2.50 Canadian at Dollarama)

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@Knightfall
I just noticed you’re in Winnipeg. You’re lucky to have one of the best RC shops in the country there……Eliminator RC. I buy so much stuff from them I’m afraid to tally it up.

cheers,
kev
 
Hm, when I looked at the splatter screen I have it seemed the open area of the mesh was much lower than window screen. Thicker wire and higher mesh size. Maybe I'll check out the dollar store ones sometime because yours looks more open. Something else that will probably work well is stainless fly screen, which has high open area like window screen.
Fans like this would you run on a 2S or 3S battery although it has been made with a JST?

I would use a secondary battery or figure out a way to power it using your main battery's balance connector, yes. If it's your only fan or used in combination with another low power fan like a stock ESC fan that only draws ~0.1A, it should be okay to use the BEC, but marginally.
 
@Knightfall
I just noticed you’re in Winnipeg. You’re lucky to have one of the best RC shops in the country there……Eliminator RC. I buy so much stuff from them I’m afraid to tally it up.

cheers,
kev
They are an amazing hobby shop. I am luckily indeed.


I just got home from a bash meet with friends. Took a run through a field freshly cut. You can see the fan mesh worked. Haha

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Did grass accumulate on the motor fan mesh too? In your picture it looks like it didn't, but you may have already brushed it off.

I was thinking that grass accumulation might be less likely to happen if the mesh is held down by only two screws like you have on the motor, and there's a small amount of spacing between the screen and shroud in parts, because it will reduce the ability of a low pressure area to form under the screen when it gets covered with grass, thereby allowing the grass to fall or be knocked off the screen.

I have mine pulled tight over the shroud with four screws, and grass plugs it up quite readily. @jkflow also noted that he had fewer issues with a loose rather than tight screen, possibly for this reason.
 
I have the same cf cover for my motor fan. Just tried it out last night and it worked great but got covered with grass which got down in the fan. I have some screen laying around I can use. Probably give that a try this evening. Not sure how to get it to go over the esc and not look terrible yet.

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I run a mojave. What i did was to totally protect the entire electronics bay from dirt and at the same time added an 8mm fan up front to blow air in the bay. I also cover the entire setup with plastic before putting on the body. Result, Zero to no dirt and cool running. I have a post on this: Mojave diy dirt shield and cooling system.
That is brilliant. Do you run the fans off a separate battery?
 
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So I decided to try the cowl idea and spent an hour sifting through materials and other crap compiled in the garage. Then said, where's that pile of broken Rocket fans I have. Took one, cut out the inner supports and removed the fan and stuck it on top of another Rocket fan. Not sure if this actually does anything (honestly I'd say no) but it left me wondering. What if I stacked two working Rocket fans like this? Would it be like a "turbo blast" fan?
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@Greengaunja Stacking fans can in theory increase static pressure, but won't increase maximum airflow, and will also increase turbulence which may lower airflow. Your configuration there is quite open at the bottom and you probably won't benefit from increased pressure, so I'd expect the performance to be at best slightly worse than one fan. You'd be better off putting them side by side, possibly with higher spacing away from the can to give more room for outflow.
 
@Greengaunja Stacking fans can in theory increase static pressure, but won't increase maximum airflow, and will also increase turbulence which may lower airflow. Your configuration there is quite open at the bottom and you probably won't benefit from increased pressure, so I'd expect the performance to be at best slightly worse than one fan. You'd be better off putting them side by side, possibly with higher spacing away from the can to give more room for outflow.
Yeah, I have the side by side set up on my speedrunner.
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What you say makes alot of sense. The fan in previous pic is a single too with an old broken fan shell on top.
 
Thx you get that meh locally? Someone just posted something similar for Amazon
You could say that. This mesh was stripped from a eavestrough. We had a huge storm awhile ago and a tree collapsed a carport. Right away I saw two things that made this great for fans. It's finer than window screening and stainless steel to boot! I have maybe 60'x4" of it! One man's garbage is another man's treasure.
Here the difference.
Dual fans above have the windowscreening(older pic)
Today it looks like this:
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I like the idea of velocity stacks for fan covers as they're supposed to help smooth out airflow into a system as illustrated below. I do have questions as to their effectiveness when it comes to fans as you have a central hub in the middle which kinda messes with what the illustration portrays. It's possible that velo stacks are best used on open pipes such as inlet pipes, manifold or carb inlets, turbo/compressor inlets and the such like. Could be an interesting topic for some A/B comparisons.
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The ESC fans blow in the Opposite direction, stock. They pull in air from the sides and exhaust up and away. Thats why they have a shroud around them.

You can change the direction but id remove the shroud and put on a bigger heatsink.


So I decided to try the cowl idea and spent an hour sifting through materials and other crap compiled in the garage. Then said, where's that pile of broken Rocket fans I have. Took one, cut out the inner supports and removed the fan and stuck it on top of another Rocket fan. Not sure if this actually does anything (honestly I'd say no) but it left me wondering. What if I stacked two working Rocket fans like this? Would it be like a "turbo blast" fan?View attachment 234060
Cant imagine that works well at high velocity. Does it?
Id think the turbulence would be way too high and reduce efficiency allot.
 
The ESC fans blow in the Opposite direction, stock. They pull in air from the sides and exhaust up and away. Thats why they have a shroud around them.
I've never had an ESC that pulls air from the sides and blows up. Every fan I've ever had in my hands rotates counter clockwise and blows down. This is easy to observe if you drive through dirt and grass which will get plastered onto the fan screen. If the fan blew upwards that shouldn't happen. The shroud is just to force the air down and through the heat sink fins and to prevent it from spilling out the sides. I've tried reversing the direction of fans but that doesn't seem to work. If you plug them in backwards, they just don't do anything.

All of these fans blow down. You can tell by the direction the blades are slanted in. If you turn them over...then they'll blow up. But I've never had an ESC with an upside down mounted fan.
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I've never had an ESC that pulls air from the sides and blows up. Every fan I've ever had in my hands rotates counter clockwise and blows down. This is easy to observe if you drive through dirt and grass which will get plastered onto the fan screen. If the fan blew upwards that shouldn't happen. The shroud is just to force the air down and through the heat sink fins and to prevent it from spilling out the sides. I've tried reversing the direction of fans but that doesn't seem to work. If you plug them in backwards, they just don't do anything.

All of these fans blow down. You can tell by the direction the blades are slanted in. If you turn them over...then they'll blow up. But I've never had an ESC with an upside down mounted fan.
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Firma/BLX 100 did this out of the box. Mine did. *correction

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Check out the 1296 computer fan array in this video.

So Cool.

 
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I just fired up my Spektrum Firma 150A and it sucks a piece of paper down. It doesn't blow it upwards. Same with my MMX8S, same with my XLX2. Maybe the BLX are different? 🤷‍♂️

You are correct!
Must be the older BLX's only.
Watched video of a few of them and mine did the same. But the new Firma 150a IS blowing up.
But the shrouds are the same and they are usually used to pull hot away away from the HS.
Firma must have determined this wasn't best for the application. but you can just flip it.

Pulling up will funnel it in from the sides which should increase velocity but can also choke the fan. Listen to its pitch change.
 
You can create a full on ventilation system within the car itself. And it will work.
I did this in my 1/8 Senton speed runner.
Because i run Max6/1650kv on 8s geared 34/40, I was getting insane heat. Didn't help that the Scorched fenders blocked alot of air from entering and exiting. So I put 2 fans on the body itself. The front (under scoop opening) draws in. The rear(above motor and under vent openings) pushes out. This setup runs a total of 5 fans.
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Forgive the blackness. Leftover from a brownout/lipo fire lol
The ESC fans blow in the Opposite direction, stock. They pull in air from the sides and exhaust up and away. Thats why they have a shroud around them.

You can change the direction but id remove the shroud and put on a bigger heatsink.



Cant imagine that works well at high velocity. Does it?
Id think the turbulence would be way too high and reduce efficiency allot.
It's one working fan and one shell. I just presented a theory of two possibly working like a turbo fan, but as you and another pointed out, turbulence would actually decrease efficiency.
 
Here was my solution to keep junk out of the max6 esc. 3drc 35mm fan cover with some screen under it and bolt it right on top. Will need longer screws though and for some reason the 3drc fan cover holes were too close together and I had to drill them out.

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How well do fan covers work? Are some better than others do you have good results keep debris out?

Most all my fans have been swapped for tall 40mm fans or flat aluminum 40mm fans. I put covers on my fans but recently, they have stopped during a bash in dirtly with dead grass, no rocks that was on the Fireteam ESC & motor. I was able to spin free the ESC fan but the motor fan will not come back.

Question:
I bash in mostly dirt so is dirt the real killer?
How well do fan covers work for you to save your fans?


I have not overlooked the obvious that these fans do fail luckly for me I can only count 3-4 of the many RCs I have. I do bash in grass like on the golf course and I do have to stop to wipe grass off the fan covers when the temp gauge goes up so the the fans can take in fresh air, but they are still running.

I have been using these covers:
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I just got these covers in hopes to keep out most the dirt/grass. It's not as open but I do feel I am not going to be restricting pulling fresh air through the small holes

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Cooking splatter shields are cheap and provide plenty of material for several fans! ($2.50 Canadian at Dollarama)

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Here was my solution to keep junk out of the max6 esc. 3drc 35mm fan cover with some screen under it and bolt it right on top. Will need longer screws though and for some reason the 3drc fan cover holes were too close together and I had to drill them out.

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That's what I did too.

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