Amp Fans
 

So one of my amps keeps heating up and shutting off on me. Maybe fans will work.... What fans are you using to keep amps cool? do they really work? and Where are you buying them?

Thanks Guys
Travis

Travis I bought two stinger fans both are Stinger SGJ78 8 1/4" fan. They sit flat next to your amp and blows the air directly at the amp and cools it down pretty good.

Okay this is what I did. I raised my amps off the carpet which is one of the reasons why it heats up. I bought a 4 pack of door stopper rubber ends. You know those type of door stoppers that you buy that attaches to the door at the bottom and you flip it down and it stops the door from closing. See attached links below. Any ways I used just the rubber end refills made for that type of door stopper as a spacers and this keeps the amp off the carpet and the fan then blows under the amps as well as hit the amp straight on.

Then I bought the stinger SGJ11 Thermastat so when the amps get hot or the area where the amps are kept get to hot it turns the fans on or off. It attaches straight to your boat/stereo battery and then to each fan. It attaches on the amp on one of the mounting screws on your amp, super simple. It works great. I have 4 Kicker amps and it keeps them from over heating. I wanted to also attach an exhaust fan StingerJ34 to blow the hot air out, but I haven't gotten around to it. Here are the links from where I bought all of my stuff. Hope this helps.

Stinger SGJ78
http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_...ger+SGJ78.html

Temperture Control switch
http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_12506_SGJ11.html

Another type of fan or the exhaust fan. I am going to mount mine so it blows the air out of the storage compartment.
http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_...ger+SGJ34.html

This is that type of door stop I was talking about. I just buy the rubber refill it comes two to a pack for like a dollar at ace. It is an 1" high and because it is soft rubber it squishes down and acts like a lock washer and keeps pressure on your amp mounting screws(stainless is the way to go). This acts like that spacer so the air gets under the amp.
http://www.google.com/products?q=fli...op+&hl=en&aq=f

I wish I had pictures to show you, but it does work for me. You can set the temperture you want tfor the fans to turn on with that Thermastat switch. All this stuff is pretty cheap too. Good Luck.

While a fan is necessary sometimes it can also be a band-aid for an underlying problem that first needs attention. By the time a fan is absolutely required because of thermal shutdown the amplifier's heatsink mass has been totally heat-saturated. So I would prefer to attack the core issue in order to preserve the amplifier's longevity. I'd rather reduce how much heat is being generated to begin with. Is the impedance load appropriate for the amplifier? Is the workload properly and evenly distributed among the amplfiers and individual amp channels? Are there other causes for the excessive heat?
A fan shroud will multiply a fan's effectiveness by evenly distributing air flow across the heatsink rather than mostly circulating air around the fan and perhaps over only a portion of the heatsink.
There are two places to use a fan. 1) A 2-inch fan over the amplifier(s). Dual fans might be used for a very large five or six-channel surfboard. 2) A 2 or 4-inch fan with an intake and exhaust vent to exchange the air in the mounting compartment with the outside.
Spacing the amplifier off the mounting surface is a good idea as stated above.

David
Earmark Marine

Guys, thank you for your ideas... It came to my attention that one of my amps has a bad channel and something was lose inside the amp and when in rough water was shorting out....... hense crackling noises and over heating.. so I through an old Rockford amp in there and boom no more over heating... but fans will still be installed to prevent future problems.. Again thank you for you input.

Travis