Ventilation fans in amps?

[John Matrix]

Any of you guys install a fan into your amp head to improve ventilation?

My Sunn Beta Lead is a solid state amp packed into a tiny metal box. This thing gets hot to the touch on the outside and the heat buildup has already caused numerous problems.

I'm thinking of just buying a clip on fan or two but I wanted to see if anyone out there had tried something else.

[Bassboar]

You could just rehouse it in a vented enclosure.
Air goes a long way for cooling.

[John Matrix]

I am building a new headshell for it that should help a bit. Whoever designed the housing for this thing was tripping. Half of the air vents in the metal case are on the bottom, but the wooden combo cabinet that it was built into blocks off the vents. derp.

[skullservant]

Yeahhhhhh I dunno who designed them but they didn't really worry about vents which is stupid. I've helped Parker from Cough with a few of his Sunn SS heads and they've faced similar challenges. One of his that he bought second hand actually had a fan that someone installed into the top of it. Smart move! Especially with how hot they get.

[Jero]

Only amp I ever owned with a fan was a big ass Lab Series bass head. It was super spacious though so not entirely needed. Not all tight packed like the ss Sunns, and Sovteks.

[Jeff-7]

I've been thinking of having one added to my AC30HW, they already run pretty warm and there's zero ventilation. Need to find someone who won't butcher the shit out of it.

[zRobertez]

My amp's reliability has been a little shakey. It's been repaired twice, both times under warranty. Both times, they replaced the power transformer and some other junk. The second time was supposedly a nice power transformer that won't break. They also installed a fan in there. It's kind of annoying since it spins at just a little out of tune of an A. But it's not that loud and if it helps, it's worth it.

[Ancient Astronaught]

My Dunwich Annunaki has a cooling fan installed into the back. Running 4 KT88'x and a huge set of iron Nick was worried about heat. That amp never gets even remotely hot.

Facebook is blocked at work or I would post a pic. I'll try to post one tonight.

[John Matrix]

Ideally I want to try to rig up something on the outside of the amp so I don't have to hack it up. For now, I'll prolly just buy a couple clip on fans, but eventually it would be nice having something on one vent blowing in and something on another blowing out. We'll see.

[Achtane]

If you were to add a fan to an amp, where would you draw the power from?

[theavondon]

I took my Beta Lead out of the shell and I put it upside-down on top of my cab, so the vents are actually facing any air at all.

Still gets pretty hot though. For some reason, they installed fans on the Coliseum series in the 70's, and like, that's it.

[new05002]

Here you go Skip

After this amp I decided to do less fans, I already built the chassis so large to get proper center to center distance from output tube to output tube and the iron was spaced out that the amps were not getting hot.

[John Matrix]

Is it more effective to have an fan blowing in or blowing out?

[Achtane]

I would think that an exhaust fan would be more useful than an intake one. Unless you put it in a really shitty spot.
Seems like the best cooling would be PC-style where you have an intake and an exhaust with directed airflow...but I don't think that's ever gonna happen. I wonder if the cool air plus hot tubes would be bad for the glass.

[John Matrix]

It's kinda tricky to imagine where it would go since the amp chassis is so small. Here are pics, looking up from the bottom. This one isn't mine but it's the same deal:



I think something blowing up the bottom vents and something blowing out the back would be ideal.