ESC Heatsinks

[Andrew Moore 7]

Is it good practise these days to take the sticker off the ESC to allow more heat to disapate ?

Seems to make a whole lot of sense

[Denis Watkins]

Good idea Andrew, the label must insulate a certain amount.

[eflightray]

Getting some air flow across it is also important.

Having a cooling air inlet is not much use unless there is an adequate air outlet, and that it's larger in size, plus free flow of air through. I'm sure many people, including model manufacturers, forget about an air outlet.

But then, if the ESC is getting quite hot, it's could be the wrong size, too small.

[Andrew Moore 7]

There's a whacking great hole at the bottom of my Dynam about 2/3rds the way along the bottom of the fuselage, no doubt to let the air out

[Chris Walby]

I would not bother taking the sticker off compared with ventilation, most ESC's are wrapped in heat shrink sleeving which is quite a good thermal insulator.

A single hole (no matter how big it is) will make little difference if the ESC is not in the air flow, better to have two holes (one in & one out) and let the air pass over the ESC to cool it.

Now for the controversial bit! I don't think just upsizing an ESC's gets around the heat gain issue of an ESC !!! I will no doubt be shot down in flames for saying that, but my view would be its better to use a smaller ESC that is more efficient than a larger one that is less efficient. The efficiency being the ability to transfer input energy to output energy with the waste mostly heat.

The difference between a small and large ESC heat sink IMHO makes little difference in thermal mass, the critical factor will be the cooling effect or not, just the larger one will take slightly longer to cook if it has no air flow!

PS does the manufacture instructions stage that the label has to be removed to achieve maximum efficiency?

Right ho hard hat on!