# Heat dissipation in a box

by MisterCharly
Tags: dissipation, heat
 P: 6 You need to consider the thermal resistances of each part. In electronics you can have a chain of resistors in series with a voltage difference between the ends of a chain, and current will flow through the chain. At each resistor junction there will be a proportion of the voltage depending on the values of the resistors. There is an analogy here with the heat problem, the equations are the same except voltage is replaced by temperature difference, the resistance replaced by thermal resistance, and the current by heat flow. So V=IR becomes ΔT=QR$_θ{}$. In your system you have a source of heat (inside the camera housing) which at equilibrium is going to be at a certain temperature, and an ambient outside temperature. Those are your end points, like the voltage across the resistor chain. Heat will flow from the hot end to the colder end, and in this case the total heat flow is 50W. You also have thermal resistances, namely internal camera heat source to camera case, camera case to box (through the air), and box to external ambient. I'm ignoring the box itself as I'm assuming it's metal with low thermal resistance, but if it's plastic there's one more junction, internal box to external box. Your camera should have a thermal resistance specification in °C/W. The box should be calculatable, again these are treated just like heatsinks and are specified in °C/W. The more difficult one is the air, but let's assume this can be found. You should have all you need to work out the various temperatures at each junction, and if necessary alter the thermal resistances by re-designing the enclosure to meet your operating temperature criteria. Edit: I think that since air has quite a high thermal resistance, the temperature difference between the camera case and the box is going to be quite high at 50W, and you've only got 15 deg C to work with in total. I think you might have to thermally bond the camera case to the box. Also you have two criteria, it must be greater than 10 deg C if the outside temp is -10, but it must be less than 15 deg C if the outside temp is +40.