[Elecraft] Thermal control for Q1 / Q2 in KPA100?

[Darwin, Keith]

-----Original Message-----
From:  Stan Rife

	From the description of the noise that the fan on your KPA-100
is making, I'd guess you have a defective fan. I never hear the fan on
my KPA-100. I have a pretty quiet shack, and operate with the volume
fairly low on the K2 and I have only noticed the fan running a few
times. 
--------------------------

On low speed I don't hear the fan at all.  On high it is definitely
heard.  It is louder than some but not all computer muffin fans I've
had.

As a musician I love a noisy fan.  As a ham, I don't.

One of my gripes about the IC-735 was the fan noise.  One of the things
I love about TenTec stuff is that they need no fan.  Well, the one's
I've owned didn't.  Of course the K2 is a small package with a small
heat sink.  Ya gotta get rid of the heat somehow and a fan is the way to
do it given the size constraints of the system.

I'm wondering about using a larger (quieter) fan with some sort of duct
system to get the airflow from the fan to the fan-port on the back of
the rig.  It could be run off the same fan wires that run the
mini-whizzer and would probably move more air.

The first step with be to run a bit reduced power and see what that
gives me.  If it continues to be a annoyance, I'll plop a muffin fan on
top to keep 'er cool & quiet.

- Keith N1AS -
- K2 5411.ssb.100 -