[Elecraft] Equipment Storage and operation

[Michael Walker]

Just to expand on this and share my experiences.

I have been running a remote station in Ontario for 15 years.  The building
is not heated or cooled at all.

It has seen from 100F down to -20F without issue.  The radios have been
Kenwood TS480 to a Flex 6300 and during the time, the amps were either an
SGC500 or a KPA500.  The TS480 and the KPA500 come right online from the
coldest days possible.  One day it took 10 minutes of full power RTTY to
get the amp temp to read above 0C (32F).  That is how cold it was.

The Flex 6300 is only engineered to 0F for the FPGA as it is not cold
temperature hardened.  My solution to that is that I don't turn off the
Flex all winter as the FPGA generates enough heat (about 5 watts) to keep
itself warm.

The humidity ranges from 20% to 100% and it can change from that in weeks
if not days.  That past week it has been mid 90's and about the same in
humidity.

I have a few tower control boxes and for the most part, they are open at
the bottom to let any moisture drain out should it happen to get inside as
I have given up on total box waterproofing.  I have seen too many equipment
boxes flooded, so 1/16" holes seem to solve that.  Fresh water does not
hurt most electronics.  Yes, those in Salt Water areas have bigger problems.

I've taken a KX2 out of a car that was at -20C and used it (yes, the LCD
was slow).  That same KX2 has been taken from its pelican case at +35C and
used it.  It might have been a bit off frequency but I had no way of
telling or hearing if it actually was.

I have yet to have an issue in the past 15 years that I can relate to being
in a non-environmentally controlled room.

The same is true for our cars that see the same temperature extremes
without issues (other than car batteries that fail).    I take that back.
On one car, my XM radio antenna would fail if it got too cold.  Welcome to
the Great White North!

The short story is, the electronics we use today are well engineered and
can handle temperature extremes and with a bit of ventilation help, they
should work just fine.

Mike va3mw



On Thu, Jul 5, 2018 at 7:04 PM, <ktalbott at gamewood.net> wrote:

> We engineered electronics packages for these types of environment, from
> desert to arctic.  Keys for success:
> 1- Inside of housing must be designed to route any condensation away from
> the electronics.  Design ENCOURAGES condensation on normally cooler
> enclosure surfaces, not the electronics.
> 2- A compartment heater (actually a high wattage, low value resistor) is
> ALWAYS energized to keep interior air temperature and temperature of
> electronic assemblies slightly above exterior.
> 3- Compartment must be absolutely air tight so as not to allow breathing as
> atmospheric pressure changes.
> Condensation that occurs collects on housing and drains to bottom of
> enclosure.  If cooling is required, it must be done with heat exchanger to
> avoid ingress of outside air.
> BTW, mission critical equipment was housed in nitrogen purged compartments,
> including conduit which is major source of humid air flow!  We required
> that
> equipment stored during construction must have compartment heaters
> energized.
> So, it can be done.
> Ken ke4rg
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: elecraft-bounces at mailman.qth.net <elecraft-bounces at mailman.qth.net>
> On
> Behalf Of Dave Sublette
> Sent: Thursday, July 5, 2018 8:38 AM
> To: Elecraft Discussion List <elecraft at mailman.qth.net>
> Subject: [Elecraft] Equipment Storage and operation
>
> I should start with an apology to the group.  Although I stand by what I
> said in a previous post, I feel that the way I expressed myself was in
> violation of decorum standards for this group.  I am sorry for that.
>
> <snip>
>
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