Dear All,
this is my first post on this forum.
Let me quickly introduce myself: I'm belgian (from Brussels, the capital of Europe, of waffels, of beers & of sprouts). I'm 33 years old, married, 1 little child and I work in IT for a bank (but I'm a physicist). I'm an "audiophile" but I'm not rich --> I'm a DIYer.
OK I stop now... I don't need a date
My first realizations: a wonderful "Bride Of Zen" preamp with external power unit (wonderfull compared to the preamp part of my NAD C312), a marvelous external power unit for my MSB Link DAC (based on the MSB P1000 model).
Now I'm building a ZEN amp (v1) to marry with my preamp. And of course, you understood: I made an external power unit
For the heatsinks I choosed to use 4 CPU coolers (Zalman 5100 AlCu), one by transistor (2xIRFP9140,2xIRFP240). Of course I removed the 4 stock fans (too noisy) and I replaced it with 2 "silent" 8 cm PAPST fans ("12 dB" rated, let say 20 to 24 dB in the real life).
I made some calculations, each transistor should dissipate about 35 to 40 Watt, this is much less than a AMD CPU at 2 GHz (80 Watt
)... My silent fans don't cool as much as the stock ones, but it should be enough (I need about 1°C/W by heatsink and they are rated 0.4 °C/W with the noisy fan).
I didn't finish yet my amp so I didn't test it...
So my questions are:
Does somedy already try this cooling solution ?
What do you think about this ?
Dont'you think it's a good idea ? Are you interested by some pics ?
Why "Classe A" should always be synonym of "fu..ing heavy black heatsinks" ?
Why don't use the computer technologies progress for the HiFi ?
this is my first post on this forum.
Let me quickly introduce myself: I'm belgian (from Brussels, the capital of Europe, of waffels, of beers & of sprouts). I'm 33 years old, married, 1 little child and I work in IT for a bank (but I'm a physicist). I'm an "audiophile" but I'm not rich --> I'm a DIYer.
OK I stop now... I don't need a date
My first realizations: a wonderful "Bride Of Zen" preamp with external power unit (wonderfull compared to the preamp part of my NAD C312), a marvelous external power unit for my MSB Link DAC (based on the MSB P1000 model).
Now I'm building a ZEN amp (v1) to marry with my preamp. And of course, you understood: I made an external power unit
For the heatsinks I choosed to use 4 CPU coolers (Zalman 5100 AlCu), one by transistor (2xIRFP9140,2xIRFP240). Of course I removed the 4 stock fans (too noisy) and I replaced it with 2 "silent" 8 cm PAPST fans ("12 dB" rated, let say 20 to 24 dB in the real life).
I made some calculations, each transistor should dissipate about 35 to 40 Watt, this is much less than a AMD CPU at 2 GHz (80 Watt
)... My silent fans don't cool as much as the stock ones, but it should be enough (I need about 1°C/W by heatsink and they are rated 0.4 °C/W with the noisy fan).I didn't finish yet my amp so I didn't test it...
So my questions are:
Does somedy already try this cooling solution ?
What do you think about this ?
Dont'you think it's a good idea ? Are you interested by some pics ?
Why "Classe A" should always be synonym of "fu..ing heavy black heatsinks" ?
Why don't use the computer technologies progress for the HiFi ?
So I'm not a genious...
Hello Thijs,
thanks for the info.
I made some search on this forum and I saw that I was not the first to have this idea
Anyway it's a good news (even if I thought I was a genious ), it seems to work fine especially with Zalman heatsink and Papst fans !
Even Mr Pass tried and seems to think it's a good idea... the Force is with me
So I'll try to finish my project quickly and I'll keep you informed...
Hello Thijs,
thanks for the info.
I made some search on this forum and I saw that I was not the first to have this idea
Anyway it's a good news (even if I thought I was a genious
), it seems to work fine especially with Zalman heatsink and Papst fans ! Even Mr Pass tried and seems to think it's a good idea... the Force is with me
So I'll try to finish my project quickly and I'll keep you informed...
Re: Zalman CNPS 5100 Al-Cu
I used only 2... These are some surplus Foxconn heatsinks designd for Athlon 1800's and below. The 4 holes used to mount a heat spreader, took it off and I have all the mountings equip I need for removing up to 100W of heat. 24V source, wired fans in series. Not quiet.. but neither is my table saw which is usually also on at the same time gotta love garage hobbies...
--
Danny
Gubby said:
I used only 2... These are some surplus Foxconn heatsinks designd for Athlon 1800's and below. The 4 holes used to mount a heat spreader, took it off and I have all the mountings equip I need for removing up to 100W of heat. 24V source, wired fans in series. Not quiet.. but neither is my table saw which is usually also on at the same time
gotta love garage hobbies...--
Danny
Attachments
I have tried these:
Didn't go for it, was just too noisy, even with reduced voltage on the fans.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Didn't go for it, was just too noisy, even with reduced voltage on the fans.
Waaaaaaawww!!!!!
Hello Everybody,
I just finish my Zen amp (v1) with the 4 CPU heatsinks (pictures are coming soon...) yesterday. I married it with my BOZ and I made a first test and....UNBELIEVABLE !!!
Even with a Sony Discman CD player as source , the sound is 10x more detailed than everything I ever heard ! (before I used the power amp part of a NAD C312 integrated amp).
Today I'll make a first test in my living room with my NAD CD player + MSB Link DAC. I'll sit down on the floor , this is safer...
Stay tuned...
Hello Everybody,
I just finish my Zen amp (v1) with the 4 CPU heatsinks (pictures are coming soon...) yesterday. I married it with my BOZ and I made a first test and....UNBELIEVABLE !!!
Even with a Sony Discman CD player as source , the sound is 10x more detailed than everything I ever heard ! (before I used the power amp part of a NAD C312 integrated amp).
Today I'll make a first test in my living room with my NAD CD player + MSB Link DAC. I'll sit down on the floor , this is safer...
Stay tuned...
Barbecue
First of all many thanks to Mr Pass for joining this discussion...
BUT today I'm not happy !
Yesterday I made a first test of my Zen amp (cooled by Zalman heatsinks + Papst fans) with the case closed.
After an hour of nirvana listening rock music at high volume , I played a classical (Chopin) CD. Of course the sound pressure was lower and I began to hear the fans noise (spinning at high high speed).
Then I tried to low this speed and it was perfect......during 10 minutes...and suddenly no more left channel !!!
I opened the cased, put my finger on the IRFP240 heatsinks
!
OK ! I'm stupid ! But I was so "bewitched" by the music...I forgot to check the temperature...
And I think I made a big mistake and this is also my
question:
My 2 fans extract the air from the case inside to the outside (I made also 2 extra holes for the air flow from the outside), don't you think it should be a better idea to invert the air flow (from the outside to the inside) ? or 1 fan importing the fresh air and 1 fan extracting the hot air ?
First of all many thanks to Mr Pass for joining this discussion...
BUT today I'm not happy !
Yesterday I made a first test of my Zen amp (cooled by Zalman heatsinks + Papst fans) with the case closed.
After an hour of nirvana listening rock music at high volume , I played a classical (Chopin) CD. Of course the sound pressure was lower and I began to hear the fans noise (spinning at high high speed).
Then I tried to low this speed and it was perfect......during 10 minutes...and suddenly no more left channel !!!
I opened the cased, put my finger on the IRFP240 heatsinks
!OK ! I'm stupid ! But I was so "bewitched" by the music...I forgot to check the temperature...
And I think I made a big mistake and this is also my
question:
My 2 fans extract the air from the case inside to the outside (I made also 2 extra holes for the air flow from the outside), don't you think it should be a better idea to invert the air flow (from the outside to the inside) ? or 1 fan importing the fresh air and 1 fan extracting the hot air ?
As advised by HBarske, go to an overclocking site and read all there is on cooling. The idea is to keep the air flowing through the case. So try to use 12cm fan blowing out, and the same one blowing in from the other side. If you put those fans on a low voltage, you'll still have enough CFM (airflow) for cooling. Here are some links:
http://www.overclockers.com/topiclist/index09.asp#CASE COOLING
http://www.webx.dk/oz2cpu/pcmod/water.htm - here's something for watercooling - water running through zen amp - 
http://www.overclockers.com/topiclist/index09.asp#CASE COOLING
http://www.webx.dk/oz2cpu/pcmod/water.htm - here's something for watercooling - water running through zen amp -
1 blowing in & 1 blowing out
This is the solution !
1 fan blowing in the fresh air & 1 fan blowing out the hot air !
Now I can touch the CPU heatsinks with my finger without any risk for my integrity...and the voltage of the fans is quite low.
And the sound !!!! Waaaaw ! I tried to use my Vincent KVH111 headphone amp (valve amp) as preamp and the result is marvelous, even better than with my BOZ... (price~ 450 Euro in Europe - picture below)
Pictures of my Zen are coming.
This is the solution !
1 fan blowing in the fresh air & 1 fan blowing out the hot air !
Now I can touch the CPU heatsinks with my finger without any risk for my integrity...and the voltage of the fans is quite low.
And the sound !!!! Waaaaw ! I tried to use my Vincent KVH111 headphone amp (valve amp) as preamp and the result is marvelous, even better than with my BOZ... (price~ 450 Euro in Europe - picture below)
Pictures of my Zen are coming.
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