Several weeks ago it came to my attention that some people were having overheating problems with their G540 when running four 3.5A motors. I ran an experiment last week to determine the best way to heatsink a G540 and how it will react when all four axes are being run at 3.5A simultaneously. The results are in the link below.

If you do not like reading things like that, here is a summary of what I found: If you have air flowing over the G540 while it is running it will perform just as well as it would with a heatsink attached to it. Make sure you have air flowing over the back of your G540 and you should not experience problems with your gecko overheating.

Here is the link: http://geckodrive.com/upload/G540%20heatsink%20Experiment.pdf

If you have any questions about this, just let me know.

Marcus Freimanis

It seems the forum SW mangled the link, I managed to find it after 3-4 guesses.

http://geckodrive.com/upload/G540%20heatsink%20Experiment.pdf

Just got done reading it. Very good information!

There we go, I fixed the link. Thanks!

Marcus

I was wondering about this...the Deepgroove controller doesn't come with either a heatsink or a fan...it's just a bare unit. Where is a good place to get the heatsinks??

If you go to a computer store you can get a Celeron CPU heatsink; however, this will work just as well as a 12V fan blowing air across the back of the G540. If you get a fan from your computer store and put it in the case to serve as an exhaust fan and have an internal circulation fan you will be fine.

If you want to go the heatsink route just keep in mind that a heatsink must be glued on with thermal epoxy. You can order that online but it will make life a little harder if something goes wrong with your G540 and you have to send it back for repairs. It is best to just use a fan.

Marcus Freimanis

Marcus,

First of all, thanks for taking the time to come here as we all know you guys are very busy. We all appreciate it, I'm sure.

This is my setup, I have an 80mm fan exhausting the air that is drawn in from each side of the box (it's vented on each side with finned walls). I'm only using this for a Taig Micro lathe at this point with 2 (two) Keling 270 oz motors and a 48 volt PS. Do you see a heat concern?

Thanks again,
Dave

What is the size of your current set resistors? I do not see that being a problem, but it is not ideal. You should have air flowing over the back of the G540 but it should not be a make or break type of situation.

Marcus Freimanis

Those would be 2.7, Marcus-

I'll be sure to add another fan shortly -

Dave