I had mine mounted similar to that last year... Heat was not an issue for me although I am in the northeast and was mounted in a metal box so it may have helped with heat dissapation. The problem I did run into is I had the comm chip went bad on the botom board after the show was running for a week or so. I had to remove the entireboard stack to get the bad board out and send it back to lor for repair. I had since changed a bit and mounted in the rear of the box and on the inside face of the enclosure (with enough wire slack to fully open the box).
The enclosure is a 12 X 12 X 6 made by Carlon and can be purchased at HomeDepot or Lowes.
I built it to use for items in my display that will not change from year to year. This particular box is for controlling a pair of 7 segment, 3 color arches (Red, Green, White) via the 16 pin and 8 pin connectors and several individual items via the six 2 pin connectors. I took these pics this past Sunday and I have a bit of tie-wrapping to do to tidy it up a bit and then I have to build another one for another pair of arches. It is also to be used exclusively with LED lights and is why I used the low power heat sinks which are more than enough for what I am doing. I think I have developed a new physical condition during the build as well. I call it "Crimple Tunnel Syndrome" 'cause I had to crimp over 96 pins to build the darn thing and I have to do another one just like it!
The Molex connectors on the back are MX150L series from Mouser.
A bit pricey and picky about crimping the pins properly but they're solid and sealed.
They'll make set up a breeze this coming Christmas. I added the remote status LED's so I could monitor them if any problems should occur and need to do preliminary debug without having to open the enclosure. These are also the PC boards and they're about an inch shorter from heatsink to heatsink than the deluxe boards.
There's also some pics of my single 16 channel box in an earlier post here. http://lightorama.mywowbb.com/forum84/16284.html
I got slammed for using green wire but it was all I had at the time. ONLY USE GREEN WIRE FOR GROUNDS!
Last edited on Tue Mar 18th, 2008 02:36 am by Duke
Duke wrote:
There's also some pics of my single 16 channel box in an earlier post here.
I got slammed for using green wire but it was all I had at the time. DON'T USE GREEN WIRE!
I have seen your post on your 16 ch box and liked the ideal of the molex plugs... Looks like a great time saver when all done...
In Dec 07 I decided to focus my money more on controllers then led lights for Xmas 08...
After I got a 108 strands of led light from Creative display & Animated Lighting, it almost killed my charge card ...
During the pre and after Christmas sales i got over 900 boxes ( yes, 900 boxes ) of standard 100ct mini-lights (red, blue, green,whit, and multi ) which only cost me a fraction of the price that the leds cost me...
Which in turn saved me more money to get more controls this year ...
I also understand the trade off of Led's great looks, and low power usage, and high price compared to standard mini-light's looks, mid-to-high power usage, and real low price....
Next year I plan to s-l-o-w-l-y build up on leds when Paul from Creative has another group buy...
hello this dennis from union ky. this is my first year. my daughter cant wait til nov. 25 to start our show. like to come by and see yours if you give me directions. thanks
If you have a board active full time (i.e. all channels on 100%) for any amount of time you will have (P=Ie) about 260 watts of dissipated power on the heat sinks. With two boards this is 520 watts. The spacing is 1/2" off of the mounting panel, 3" spacing between boards. Your enclosure looks to be about 3500 cubic inches of air space. With the top closed on the box, build up of heat in the box will occur. I would look for a 4" whisper fan, cut an opening in one side to mount the fan and across from it drill about a dozen 1/2" holes to allow air flow out. JMO.
Last edited on Fri Nov 6th, 2009 05:05 pm by motorcycle jack
I run almost exclusively with LED's which are only about 1/10 the current draw of incandecents so I have no problem with heat/condensation. I also have a 48 channel box which again is used on LEDs and no problem with heat there either.
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