Heatsink...

[Lewis Moon]

I'm mentally designing the housing for my future gainclone and was wondering if it would be an adequate heat sink if the chips were attached to a quarter inch thick, 5" x 7" aluminum plate (one of the outer walls)?

[kuldeepsingh]

one 5"x7" per 3886 should be ok, considering at least 10 mm thickness of aluminium sheet. but you have to keep it in a good air circulation zone

[Lewis Moon]

So that's two sheets. I can do that (I live next door to an ex GM prototype machinist). I was thinking of sort of a "tower" arrangement and I can mount one chip on each side wall. The power source will be elsewhere and all the jacks will be on the back with some interesting wood on the top and front.

I'd like to place the power unit in a black box out of sight. Would it still be sucking power if there is no draw from the amp? (carbon footprint and all...) I could put a switch on the back of the amp. I'd like to not have to crawl under the media center to turn it off. Basically I want it to be a high tech wall wart....

[DigitalJunkie]

Unless your switch is on the primary side of the transformer,ther will always be some amount of draw. It will go down,with the amp off/not in use,but it will still draw a few watts 24-7.

[AndrewT]

The heatsink could be improved if the whole box were made from aluminium. But all the joints would need to be thermally coupled to minimise resistance to heat flow.

Keep in mind that the inner surface of the box will be warmer than the outer surface. You must provide ventilation to prevent overheating of the internal components.

[Tripmaster]

Originally posted by AndrewT
The heatsink could be improved if the whole box were made from aluminium. But all the joints would need to be thermally coupled to minimise resistance to heat flow.

Keep in mind that the inner surface of the box will be warmer than the outer surface. You must provide ventilation to prevent overheating of the internal components.

Hi Andrew

I am in the process of designing a couple aluminium enclosures for my dual mono Chipamp.

Ventilation is something I have been thinking about over the last couple of days. I obviously what there to be enough ventilation, but because of the design I don't want to drill to many holes.

What would you recommend?

A bit a daft question...so please don't shoot me down

Regards

Richard

[Puffin]

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[Tripmaster]

Originally posted by Puffin
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[Puffin]

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