I totally agree with Gary here. Personally, any solid state radio I
have, if it does not have a fan on the heat sink, I put one on it. Doesn't
have to be elaborate, just something to move the air surrounding the heat
sink. Computer power supply fans are excellent as they (most) all run off of
+12vdc at less than 100ma and easily powered by using the +12vdc output of
Ten Tec's rigs. I kludged my fan to my Omni 6 using long-neck soldering lugs
with the small end drilled out to accept the chassis screw size of the
cabinet. Wasn't particularly pretty but it works.
Save yourself some grief and put a fan on the back of your
radio...if you have to spend money doing it, you lose!
Tom/W4BQF
-----Original Message-----
From: Gary Hoffman [mailto:ghoffman@spacetech.com]
Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2003 5:27 PM
To: Adam Farson; Ten-Tec Contesting; tlogan7@cox.net
Subject: Re: [TenTec] Orion - cooling fan
One thing is sure... solid state devices can work better in some cases, and
last longer in most cases, if they run cooler. The well-known rule of thumb
is
that decreasing the temp by 10 deg C produces a doubling of device life.
While I am not personally convinced that this doubling is always achieved, I
do
think that you will never go wrong by running solid state devices cooler.
For the
tiny cost of the fan and misc. parts, I would just do it in every case. I
have a
little fan sitting here next to my amp, for instance.
73 de Gary, AA2IZ
|