Sidebar Sidebar
  • You can now help support WorldwideDX when you shop on Amazon at no additional cost to you! Simply follow this Shop on Amazon link first and a portion of any purchase is sent to WorldwideDX to help with site costs.

Texas Star 500V fan retro fit?

Mount fan(s) to draw heat away from the heatsink, not the other way around. This is the way radio and amp manufacturers install fans. The heatsink draws heat from the components while the fan draws heat out and away from the heatsink.

The heatsink will barely get warm and with a large fan such as I used in the above pic, the heatsink will literally feel cold in minutes.

By using those cheap blue plastic wall anchors to mount the fan, it secures it because the anchors expand in the heatsink fins and because they're plastic, it doesn't scratch the fins or damage them.

Quick and easy and it works.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mudduckmobile and Limeybastard
bob85 said:
There has been a fair volume of debate on mounting fans on amps on cb forums, people making cases brackets etc fixings between fins drilling & bolting, sucking, blowing, fitting thermal switches etc,

Debating with CCM caused me to buy one of these https://www.instrumart.com/products/722/raytek-raynger-mx4-infrared-thermometer,

a laser pen and some cigs for smoke to see where air flows happening,

i also monitored bias thermal tracking to see what was actually going on at the heatsink right beside the transistors inside the amps,

here's what i found,

heatsinks should face upwards,

blowing air onto the heatsink beats sucking every time,

two & three fans on the same heatsink channels fight each other, one large fan works best,
if you must use small fans don't put them on the same channels,

fans with smaller hubs have a smaller dead spot under them,

not all fans are equal, some make more noise than others of the same flow if noise is an issue,

the fan should be on wherever the amp is in use, wire it to the power switch,

thermal switches cause deeper thermal cycling that you don't want,

brackets & cases & things like screws poking down the fins only look better,

if you have CMC you can smoke a fan with rf,
wrap a few turns of the fan wires through a ferrite core & put a .1uf cap across the wires both near the fan,

a burning fan in the mobile smells ACRID, REALLY BAD PROBABLY POISONOUS,

the most effective mounting method i have used since the early 80's looks shit but works great & costs next to nothing,
damps vibration & never marks the amp,

roll 4 x 1/2" ish blobs of bluetack & put them on the fan mounting holes,

look where the transistors are & make sure you don't have the fan hub over them,

place fan on heatsink & fire the fan up,
listen to the fan and slowly start pressing the fan down evenly at the 4 corners until you just start to hear a small increase in speed STOP right there,
the fan is at the optimum distance & working into a slight positive pressure,
almost all the air will flow straight down the fins & off the ends.,
don't use big blobs that block the fins.
Click to expand...

Sorry for sounding dumb, what does CCM stand for? Is that some sort of RF energy?

Thanks for the great explanation and posting, appreciated it.

So effectively, I'll mount the dx500v upside-down and get the largest fan possible blowing air into its fins. Roughly what size fan would fit?

I had made a crude dual 14cm cooling stand for my 2970n4 , i used those whisper quiet fans, doesnt blow very hard though but they are 12v connected to a fan hub i have which is fed by a 12vdc supply. Would another one these concoctions work?
IMG_20170729_183106.jpg
IMG_20170729_183056.jpg
IMG_20170729_183137.jpg
 
fourstringburn said:
Mount fan(s) to draw heat away from the heatsink, not the other way around. This is the way radio and amp manufacturers install fans. The heatsink draws heat from the components while the fan draws heat out and away from the heatsink. .
Click to expand...
Actually research proves that (blowing) impingement cooling works best. Aavid a manufacturer of heatsinks and a company formerly known as Thermalloy did that research and proved that blowing on the heatsink is best. Thermalloy was sued for patent infringement and now Aavid owns them.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Slowmover and bob85
Tallman said:
Actually research proves that (blowing) impingement cooling works best. Aavid a manufacturer of heatsinks and a company formerly known as Thermalloy did that research and proved that blowing on the heatsink is best. Thermalloy was sued for patent infringement and now Aavid owns them.
Click to expand...
So why doesn't hardly any manufacturers do this? This includes other electronics and even fans on cpu heatsinks.
My suggestion works and is easy to do, this is what the OP is looking for.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Slowmover
fourstringburn said:
So why doesn't hardly any manufacturers do this? This includes other electronics and even fans on cpu heatsinks.
My suggestion works and is easy to do, this is what the OP is looking for.
Click to expand...
It is not any harder to do, just flipping the fan over. There are common practices that are not proper design engineering and they still do it any way. For example Class "C" amplifiers. I personally conducted research in this area of thermodynamics and my paper was classified as sensitive corporate documents. The test was exceptionally detailed and conducted over a period of three months of daily testing 24 hours a day recorded results and calculated Delta T. Things were taken into consideration that most people would not even think of like the aerodynamics and laminar air flow and the resultant boundary layer air flow. Not wanting a pi$$ing contest either.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Slowmover
Tallman said:
It is not any harder to do, just flipping the fan over. There are common practices that are not proper design engineering and they still do it any way. For example Class "C" amplifiers. I personally conducted research in this area of thermodynamics and my paper was classified as sensitive corporate documents. The test was exceptionally detailed and conducted over a period of three months of daily testing 24 hours a day recorded results and calculated Delta T. Things were taken into consideration that most people would not even think of like the aerodynamics and laminar air flow and the resultant boundary layer air flow. Not wanting a pi$$ing contest either.
Click to expand...
No argument implied.

Flip the fan if one wants to.

With personal experience with these amps and using a large fan, ambient air is moving between the fins and you can feel it. The heatsink as a whole never got more than warm and was cold to the touch within minutes after use.

I did once flip the fan thinking the same thing. This caused more noise because the fan was flat on the fins causing buffering. It would have been fine if I would have mounted the fan off and above the amp, but I would have to engineer a mount.

So that's my point here, why turn something simple into a science engineering project when you can simply mount it flat with the fan drawing heat outward. It's simple and it works!

Shouldn't be an argument with statement.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Tallman
When the fan blades get close to an object you end with the sound of the air turbulence caused by the air stream being sheared. A few thick flat washers or several sections of stiff plastic tubing would fix that right up.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: bob85 and fourstringburn
fourstringburn said:
That would work.

The real debate is why Texas star doesn't use fans in the first place!
Click to expand...
If a manufacturer can shave a penny off of the cost of a unit they will. It improves the bottom line and profit per unit sold. The fans might cost them $6.00 each and then there will be added hardware and assembly time.
 
  • Like
Reactions: walterjn
fourstringburn said:
That would work.

The real debate is why Texas star doesn't use fans in the first place!
Click to expand...

Yeah, Im hoping at least they inc a document detailing service center
fourstringburn said:
Any US hardware store sells them. Across the pond they maybe different, probably threaded to the left. :ROFLMAO:

View attachment 21406
Click to expand...

HAHAHA Love it about the comment threaded to the left. Made me laugh big time , cheers.

Im here living in your country now , so Lowes it is.
 
  • Like
Reactions: walterjn
Limeybastard said:
Yeah, Im hoping at least they inc a document detailing service center


HAHAHA Love it about the comment threaded to the left. Made me laugh big time , cheers.

Im here living in your country now , so Lowes it is.
Click to expand...
Glad you liked that one!

Didn't realize you were living here. I hope you like our little country.
 

dxChat
Help Users
  • No one is chatting at the moment.


      Top Bottom
      Back