Heatsinks and the GSSL?

Hey Guys,

I built a GSSL a few months ago and it is still operational after a good few hours in the studio but I didn't heatsink the regs and from memory the regs used to get fairly hot to the touch, but it is hard to put a reg on the board without taking them offboard, so I left it as is.

Recently I uncovered thread about using sinks on them and was wondering if other are using sinks or not.

Cheers

Matt

None here.

Non here too - even with the add. opamp of the thrust filter everything is cool.

Gentlemen,

Thanks for affirming my suspicions. If anyone has had their house burn down from a burnt out GSSL reg let me know, Hah hah!

Cheers

Matt

[quote author="RogerFoote"]The 78XX and 79XX regs have thermal shutdown, so no worries.[/quote]
Well, I've recently had to make a heatsink for one of the reulators in my second GSSL.
There was no problems during tests but then I put on the lid and stuffed it in between a couple of other units in the rack. After 10 minutes or so the meter froze in a certain position and the light went out. As far as I could tell it still sounded right but I didn't really give the audio that much attention since something was clearly wrong. I ended up having to create a makeshift heatsink out of piece of a cola can and clipped it on the regulator. That has worked fine for about 6 months now.

I don't remember what the case type is called but it's the small typical transistor type case and it was one of the two regulators facing eachother, and the one furthest away from the pcb mounted power transformer...

no heatsinks for me
not in a GSSL

but if some of you guys are using a meaty lamp for the meter AND you have taken the power from downstream of a regulator then you could have some current issues

try an AC driven lamp or just get the current before the regs

they make these clip on heat sinks, you just snap them over the metal part of the regulator.
They do not take mechanical shock very well, but if the product does not have tio ship anywhere, no problem.
Cheap, also. Just a fin of dark steel with curls on the ends, about 1 1/4 inches wide, no insl kit or chassis mounting required.

this is different than the ones i was thinkin of, but same concept:

Those are very similar to the heatsinks I use in my GSSLs.

/A

in rare cases - mostly if too much current is drawn for LED-lightening - the 78L12 gets a bit too hot. This can be solved by clipping on a bit of heatsink - like a cut-out and folded piece of a beer-can, preferably with a drop of thermal-transfer compound.

But even though the 7815/7915 are getting warm, I've never seen any overheat-related trouble from that team..

Jakob E.

...

It's not really a problem, as the 78xx/79xx series has built-in SOA compensation, that simply shuts down the regulator temporarily if it gets too hot. And you'd notice that, I promise..!

Jakob E.