[Amps] sealed air cooled dummy load in oil??

[Steve Thompson]

Jim Nowotarski wrote:
>>Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 12:21:52 -0400
>>From: "Gary Patterson" <gpatterson53 at hotmail.com>
>>Subject: [Amps] sealed air cooled dummy load in oil??
>>To: amps at contesting.com
>>Message-ID: <BAY101-F247E2BA4F3BEF3ADD40EEDDACA0 at phx.gbl>
>>Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed
>>
>>Can one of those "finned", air cooled, sealed dummy loads be dumped
> 
> into a
> 
>>can of transformer oil (cantenna-like) and significantly increase
> 
> its power
> 
>>dissapation??
>>
> 
> Generally yes, depending of course on your definition of
> "significant."
> I would suggest monitoring the temperature of the load. The oil will
> help transfer the
> heat from the load, but of course it won't increase the max
> temperature that the load can take.
I was going to suggest blowing air rather than dunking it in oil - but 
to know if either is worthwhile you need to look at the thermal 
resistances from the resistor part to ambient. I don't know the 
construction of these use but if most of the temperature difference is 
between the resistor and the finned case, then cooling the case doesn't 
do much for you. If the converse is true, it could do a lot.

Steve