Cooling liinear voltage regulator on smd component

Other Hardware General Electronics
1

hi everyone, i am using l298n motor driver with 30volts dc voltage. and after a certain amount of time voltage regulator on it get very hot. so i am afraid to it burned. i cant mount heatsink on it. because place is very narrow. how can i cool it passively?

i think that i can place a screw on it with thermal paste. i am not sure it is a good idea :smiley:
or i can place kitchen aluminum foil on it but afraid of short circuit.

any idea or recommendations?

simple cooling options will be fine for me.

thank you

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2

Desolder it, and use wires to connect it, mounting the regulator on a heat sink.

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3

Or get a module that doesn't have a fundamental engineering fault in it.

1 Like
4

That not an engineering fault if the module is being used with a lower load.

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5

It's an engineering fault if the module is specified for these conditions but can't cope with them.

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6

You could try cutting back a heatsink to give relief of the hot device's surrounding components. Then bond the modified heatsink to the hot device.
Possibly add some heatsink to the other side of the boardas well; not so effective as the board is a relativley poor thermal conductor.

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7

More effective than heatsinking the top side of the device. There's a teuck load of thermak vias around the device to aid heat dissipation through the pcb.

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8

not an option. i m not good at smd soldering. thank you

9

i cant place heatsink from bottom. placing screw is a bad idea?

10

How hot exactly does the part get? Usually something like 70C feels very hot to the touch but will be still OK.
Also, do your motors really require 30V or is a lower voltage also OK?

1 Like
11

Hi,
Can you please post a circuit diagram?
Are you using the 5V from the driver board to supply anything else in your circuit?

Thanks.. Tom.. :smiley: :+1: :coffee: :australia:

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12

You would not be SMD soldering!

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13

Search for
Heat sink gel pads

These can be mounted either side and are squashie and you can attach a heat sink to the top.
Forget heat sink compound it only works on very smooth flat surfaces.

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14

it probably 70-80 degree. maybe it is okay but it scary because it will stay open for weeks. so i want to add additional simple cooling. is that so hard:D

15

yes i am using 5v. probably thats why it wil get hotter. 30-to 5v cause to alot of heat

16

No, not if you design the module yourself and can make the appropriate choices to keep temperature low. But it certainly is hard if you use an existing product that's not made to be modified in this way.
You could take a fan and have it blow over the regulator. That will help some.

So get a separate regulator for that. A buck converter would make sense.

2 Likes
17

seperate regulator has other disadvantages so that i used this module. as far as i understand that there is not a simple way to cool it except cooling gel

18

Uhm, no. Unless you have some kind of gel that evaporates, thereby dissipating energy, and you will sit next to the PCB re-applying this gel continuously to it.

Just get a different regulator for your 5V circuitry and deal with the 'other disadvantages'.

19

thank you. i will wait till it burns:d then i will handle this stuation

20

You could do that.
The silver-colored electrolytic caps right next to the hot component will be the first ones to go.