Why is heat a problem now?
What are hot animatronics? Have you ever wondered what keeps animatronic characters dancing, singing, and enchanting audiences with their lifelike movements? Well, here’s a cool secret â literally! Maintaining low temperatures is vital for the optimal safety, performance, and longevity of potentially too hot animatronics.
What heat can lead to
Animatronics have progressively become more and more electric. Not many need huge hydraulic actuators. Those did not produce much heat at all inside an animatronic. The external HPUs would be the heat source, and they are located typically in another room or outside. Less hydraulics is great as it reduces mechanical problems but presents a new challenge, hot animatronics! Electric motors heat up when current is pumped through them. If that heat is not removed you will have bad performance, discoloration of costumes, smoke, and potentially FIRE!
How we make COOL animatronics
We use a number of different strategies to keep our electric animatronics cool. When it make sense we use CFD thermal simulation tools to visualize heat before our design is manufactured. In some cases you can remove the heat passively using surface area of thermally conductive materials (heatsinks). Sometimes we will use active heat control with blowers or axial fans that pull cool air into the guts of a character. Other methods we use are proprietary đ
For more information please feel free to contact us directly
2023