Poo Unregistered guest | I am nuts when it comes to electronics and heat. My computers have 9 fans each (sounds like an old engine in need of tuning)and even my laptop has a cooler at the bottom! So, what does this have to do with receivers? You got it! I recently purchased an HK and would like to know if there is something out there that I can buy to help dissipate heat better. I was thinking about a small, oscillating fan, but, in addition to cooling, it would blow dust particles into the receiver. A no-no! Any suggestions? There has to be something for nuts like me! |
Silver Member Username: MyrantzPost Number: 356 Registered: Feb-04 | In hot weather I use a small 12v fan with a voltage regulator allowing 2v increments from 2 to 12. You can push or extract air depending which side of the fan you place over the top vents. Any electronics shop should have these. |
J. Vigne Unregistered guest | You can also try a 250 volt whisper fan (pancake fan). Plugged into a 120 volt outlet it will run at half speed and still give good drawing power when placed over the heatsinks of the reciever. You will get better cooling by drawing air from the bottom through the amp than from trying to blow air into the amp from above. Raise the reciever about 1/2" if you need more air flow. Buy these at an electronics supply house. If necessary Radio Shack has 120 volt fans you can use. Most recievers shouldn't run hot enough to really need a fan though, they are not operating in the microvolt levels of a computer. |
Bronze Member Username: BilldashillPost Number: 97 Registered: Dec-03 | Fans create dust flow into the reciever so good practice would be to open it up every year or so (depends on how much you use it) and blow out all the accumilated dust. Dust is the second worst enemy behind heat. |
Bronze Member Username: MongoTucson, AZ USA Post Number: 23 Registered: Apr-04 | I have done some serious modeling of heat dissipation in electronics devices in pursuit of a trade-off between heat-sink size and fan CFM rating, and I found that there is a point of diminishing returns is quickly reached with the fan CFMs. Basically, a small fan will make a big difference on a system intended to be used without a fan (what we call "natural convection"). For an audio system the trick is to keep the fan quiet. There are fans designed to have reduced sound, but generally for the same CFM the quieter fan will be larger and operate at a lower RPM. I find that CRT computer monitors last longer with additional airflow, so I have a fan on top of my PC monitor extracting air (working with natural convection, e.g., hot air rises). The fan is a 12-Volt, 120mm dia, 25mm thick fan rated for about 60CFM. I usually run it at 6V and it is inaudible compared to my PC (my PC is in an Antec Sonata case, which is pretty quiet). Some of the PC quiet case sites might be of help to you in choosing a specific make and model fan, such as this one: http://www.silentpcreview.com/index.php |