Electronic – Mosfets cooled with Heatsink and fan

coolingfanheatsinkmosfet

For my circuit, I have mounted heatsinks to my mosfets to dissipate heat. I have below a crude drawing of how the heatsink/mosfet is placed on the PCB

enter image description here

I was thinking to integrate a LM35 to measure temperature, and to turn on a fan when the heat of the mosfet/heatsink gets too high, so that the air may cool down the mosfet/heatsink.

My question is, can I place a fan in some way that would cool off the mosfet/heatsink? If so, how? I was thinking to place the fan on top to suck air from the heatsink and blow the heat upwards?enter image description here

Would this work? I don't think placing the fan to blow at the mosfet/heatsink would work since the heat would just dissipate into the board?

Would my mosfet/heatsink placement even allow for an effective fan to be placed?


UPDATE: So my design for placing the fan above the heatsink should work from what I'm gathering. Though I am still unsure of where I should direct airflow.

@Swonkie: If I enclosed the bottom of my fan into a shroud like WhatRoughBeast suggested, would the airflow be "directed"? If I implemented a shroud, would the air be drawn directly from the mosfet/heatsink strictly? If I did direct airflow to the mosfet/heatsink, wouldn't the heat dissipate through to my PCB board?

ALSO: As I am using an LM35 for temperature sensing, should I place the LM35 so that it's touching the heatsink or the mosfet itself? Which would be more effective implementation for temperature reading?

Best Answer

These things actually exist.

http://www.ebay.com/bhp/mosfet-heatsink

And well, roughly you could say that the amount of surface area will allow better cooling. In combination with the amount of air flowing through/against it.


So that it will have the most possible contact with cool air. I'm not sure what your implementation is. But I'd suggest to try passive cooling. It really helps a lot, won't cause any noise or 'waste' energy. (Cooling with a fan might increase the current over the mosfet and thus backfire you?) Also, if it gets too hot for passive cooling (probably) something is wrong with your implementation.


So yes, it will work, it's effectiveness will vary on the exact implementation. But it 'should' not be neccesary to use active cooling (with a fan). The mosfet heatsinks on ebay look pretty promising and are way easier to implement and cheaper than an extra fan+temperature sensor.