ESC Heat Sinks

[claytonbakerjr]

I am full of questions today

For the most part we must protect our ESC's from touching any part of a carbon fiber frame.
I will assume the same goes for the ESC's heat sink.
Now then as long as no part of the ESC touches the carbon fiber we should be good to go.

If I were to cut a small hole over an area of the heat sink to help expose it to more
cooling would I stand the chance of an ARC of voltage/electricity getting back to the CF?

I need to change the path of the signal wire on all of my ESC's I just purchased to
help reduce the thickness, currently the signal wire runs over top of the capacitor I am
going to move it to where it runs off to the side.

I also have noticed some ESC's on the market where this capacitor is not covered
with any heat shrink, am I to assume this is a weak point on the manufacturers side or
that the capacitor does not conduct electricity externally and if it touches it will not
burn out the ESC?

 

[Tony]

Most times, on teh small ESC's, the heat sink doesn't have any voltage in it. It's just there to dissipate heat from the FET's. And if it does have polarity, it's only negative.

Yes, allowing air to hit the bare sink will help. Even better is if you can cut some kind of grooves in it to provide more surface area and better cooling.

But with that said, these ESC's usually (key word) don't get that hot.

Same as the heat sink, the outside casing of the caps are negative.