Heat inside Water Tight PVC SSR Container ?

[andyhough]

I am thinking of using a PVC Cleanout and a Cap for my SSR enclosures. Do the SSRs have to breathe, or should I be concerned about heat building up inside one of these?

Thanks,
Andy

[xmus]

I am thinking of using a PVC Cleanout and a Cap for my SSR enclosures. Do the SSRs have to breathe, or should I be concerned about heat building up inside one of these?

Thanks,
Andy

I don't have a scientific answer but ...
1) it depends on what your loads are, higher loads, more heat.
2) I've been using the attached setup for a few weeks now, and i haven't killed anything. 8 channels have 0.05 Amps each, the other 8 channels have .2Amps each. (for the tubes that is, for the watermaster enclosure which has a rubber seal, I'm running higher loads... like averaging .2 to .3 amps per channel on all 16 channels).

[andyhough]

Cool,

Nice pics.

I am going to try to make little ornament looking things, so we shall see.

[xmus]

Cool,

Nice pics.

I am going to try to make little ornament looking things, so we shall see.

Good luck, and when something explodes or catches fire, let us know, so we wont do that :) But seriously, we all just kinda go along trying not to make stuff catch fire, and it seems to work.... At my last job, I had access to professional thermal monitoring equipment, and I could have run some experiments and determined at what load the enclosure generates too much heat, but I don't have that kind of access anymore. So, instead, we'll just guess! :)

[joeytx]

I am using 2" PVC with caps and Test Plugs. I mount the units vertically and have had some in the yard testing since early October with no problems.

[andyhough]

These are great pictures!!! Thanks for all the ideas!

[Aurbo99]

Xmus,

Could you give a little more detail on that green bazooka, whats the pipe? I dont recognize it.

Its similar to what I and thinking of doing, a "Squid" made from 2 end caps and a section of pipe wide enough to handle Sean's SSROZ boards.

The board mounted on a peice of ply or lumber and a couple of bolts or a connector strip to facilitate connections inside the unit.

Still working out the costs of different units, so far the cheapest is 10 bucks for a 4 channel box that's NOT weatherproof, The Squid, with female ends for the channels, and a male end for the power with room to route the Cat 5 cable is the closest to weather-proof I can find, and a good dab of silicone or grommets might fix that too.

Simple hardware like junction boxes and end caps are just too d@mn expensive in the great white north.. Its 3 bucks for a single end cap!

Cheers
Steve

[xmus]

Howdy,

http://www.christmasinshirley.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1040&highlight=bazooka
There is the writeup on the bazooka!

[Aurbo99]

Thanks Xmus,,

Cheers
Steve

[TED]

I am thinking of using a PVC Cleanout and a Cap for my SSR enclosures. Do the SSRs have to breathe, or should I be concerned about heat building up inside one of these?

I would think that if it was perfectly air tight you would have problems with condensaton.
It would be good to have some holes in the bottom so condensation could escape
but rain would not get in. Some people put a couple of C9 bulbs in
their enclosures to keep them dried out.

TED

P.S. When posting pictures it is good to reduce them to 640 x 480 or so. These HUGE pictures cause the need for side to side scrolling. :shock:

[xmus]

Ted,

All of my enclosures are as you describe, sealed, with some breathing holes at the bottom.