One of the recurring themes on the forum seems to be that of heat sinking the TSE-II components. Some have added larger off-board sinks, there's talk of fans, of soldering or not soldering the heat sink mounting tabs, a couple builders have the IC3 heat sink projecting thru the top of the chassis with all the others underneath.
What is the warmest component - IC3 ?
One idea I have us to either mount the heat sink with it's fins facing outward - off the board in free air space - rather than inwards toward C12. Another idea is to mount it in the normal alignment, then attach another sink facing outwards using a second little screw and nut.
I know that R36 will be making some heat.
I'm going to have hole(s) directly above it on my chassis.
Any problems with the length of the leads when mounting a component on an external sink ? I like the idea of keeping everything on the board if practical when building it upside down.
As the sinks are somewhat difficult to solder (they are designed to remove the heat after all), I plan on fixing my heat sink tabs to the board with a couple dabs of epoxy - anyone see any problems with that ?
A small fan or two are definitely in my plans. Maybe a tiny fan on each side of the metal chassis, one blowing in and the other out. Or, given generous holes in the top plate of the chassis, maybe just one centered on the bottom plate blowing upward. I'm currently looking at what's available for small and quiet fans.
So there are some of my ramblings. I thought that since heat seems to be of concern with multiple solid state devices on a compact PCB, we may find a separate forum thread useful.
What is the warmest component - IC3 ?
One idea I have us to either mount the heat sink with it's fins facing outward - off the board in free air space - rather than inwards toward C12. Another idea is to mount it in the normal alignment, then attach another sink facing outwards using a second little screw and nut.
I know that R36 will be making some heat.
I'm going to have hole(s) directly above it on my chassis.
Any problems with the length of the leads when mounting a component on an external sink ? I like the idea of keeping everything on the board if practical when building it upside down.
As the sinks are somewhat difficult to solder (they are designed to remove the heat after all), I plan on fixing my heat sink tabs to the board with a couple dabs of epoxy - anyone see any problems with that ?
A small fan or two are definitely in my plans. Maybe a tiny fan on each side of the metal chassis, one blowing in and the other out. Or, given generous holes in the top plate of the chassis, maybe just one centered on the bottom plate blowing upward. I'm currently looking at what's available for small and quiet fans.
So there are some of my ramblings. I thought that since heat seems to be of concern with multiple solid state devices on a compact PCB, we may find a separate forum thread useful.
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That depends on your choice of tubes and transformers.
With 2A3 tubes IC3 could be the warmest component. For most 300B builds R36 will be by far the warmest part.
Leave the mosfets and 10M45's where they are on the board. They do not get hot like that did in the original TSE since they don't eat raw B+. Long wires on the mosfets can provoke oscillation.
R36 is a resistor, it has bypass caps on both ends, you can mount it on wires in the next zip code and it won't matter. If you are going to mount R36 off board, use the 150 volt zener for D6 to put more heat into R36, and less into the mosfets. Make R36 a 10 watt part. That removes the biggest heat source from the board. Use one of those gold anodized chassis mount resistors and you put the heat into the chassis, not the board.
You can bend the leads of IC3 so that it can be inserted on the tube socket (top) side of the board and the tab screwed directly to the chassis. No heat sink needed if your chassis is reasonably thick aluminum.
It could make life difficult if you ever need to change parts. In most situations the heat sinks don't need to be soldered. I tend to leave bare boards laying around for experiments, and yes, I have already busted a heat sink and diode off the board, so I soldered them. Just put a dab of solder on one pin making it harder to knock over when putting the board into the chassis.
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