[Elecraft] KPA1500 Fan Noise

David Gilbert xdavid at cis-broadband.com
Mon Jun 4 11:44:28 EDT 2018


Roughly speaking, both an i7 CPU and a GTX 1070 GPU have power 
dissipation ratings 150 watts or less, making them each about an order 
of magnitude less than the likely dissipation in the KPA1500. I actually 
do like the idea of liquid cooling since it's efficient and flexible if 
designed properly, but it uses much more space ... the liquid tubes 
alone guarantee that and if you want quiet the radiator is much larger.  
I don't think that weight is the real issue here ... space certainly is, 
though.  Liquid cooling for the KPA1500 would be unrealistic on a 
commercial basis for a small amp.

But if you extract the heat via liquid cooling and transfer it to a 
large enough fan-cooled heat dissipator with larger and slower running 
fans, you can make the noise almost imperceptible.  I have liquid CPU 
cooling on my desktop computer and I can't even hear the two CPU fans 
over the relatively quiet case and power supply fans.

73,
Dave   AB7E


On 6/3/2018 6:11 AM, Drew AF2Z wrote:
> There are liquid cooling systems available for CPUs and graphics 
> cards, used by gamers and overclockers. Have no idea how this would 
> compare to cooling a 1500 watt RF power amplifier but probably more 
> analogous than an airplane engine.
>
> 73,
> Drew
> AF2Z
>
>
> On 06/02/18 17:09, Dauer, Edward wrote:
>>
>> I have been following this thread with interest because I have a 
>> KPA1500 on order, and I have very limited flexibility as to where the 
>> RF deck can go compared to where I will have to sit.
>>
>> Don's video was very well done and a great help in understanding the 
>> realities.
>>
>> I know zero about thermodynamics, and so wanted only to say thanks to 
>> everyone who is contributing ideas, and to make but two comments.
>>
>> First, as to water cooling, I suspect it would be a huge weight 
>> penalty to get the cooling fluid everywhere it needs to be.  So far 
>> as I know there is only one reciprocating engine made for aircraft 
>> that has a water jacket.  (There might be others nowadays - I haven't 
>> owned an airplane for some years.)  The reasons others don't are 
>> reliability, safety, complexity, and - mostly - weight.  Second, 
>> isn't this largely a contest-operating issue?   I believe we are 
>> still governed by the rule that we may use only that amount of power 
>> necessary for the communication.    I contest too, so I'll face the 
>> problem on those occasions, but not for casual ragchews.  I plan to 
>> make some graphs of when in terms of time, power, mode and band the 
>> fans on mine kick up a notch, and use it as a general operating 
>> guideline if I need to.
>>
>> Ted, KN1CBR
>>
>>
>
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