no personal experience with a SWM but I don't think they are supposed to be that hotkruegs said:
no personal experience with a SWM but I don't think they are supposed to be that hotkruegs said:Howdy...
Quick question. I need someone to put my mind at ease.I installed a SWM-8 today by the book... hooked everything up and it works like a champ on all of my receivers. No issues there.
My concern: I went outside after booting up my three receivers and literally after the SWM being power up for maybe 40 minutes tops, it is HOT. I mean, put your hand on it and hold it for about 10 seconds and it is cooking. Is this normal? I expected a touch of heat, but nothing like this!!! Thoughts?
Thanks much
Mike
I wonder if that box is causing your problem? Since the casing of the SWM is a passive heatsink, it needs airflow around it to cool the SWM. How hot does the SWM get if you leave the door open on that box?kruegs said:Ok, it has maybe cooled down a touch. Yes, it was in a box on the South side of my house and in the sun initially. Temp was about 83 degrees outside. The sun has since started to go down/over my house and it is not as "hot" but still a touch alarming to me. With the box in the attached pic closed, I can feel a little bit of the warmth through the box without even opening it. I can definitely touch the SWM, but to put any pressure on it with my hand... it is too hot to do for very long. My main concern is if it is so hot that it would cause fire, but I may be a tad paranoid.
So... the pics of my install: http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/6810/swm002sd6.jpg
Any other thoughts? Doug, I am also very interested in your experiences.
Mike
That's probably it. Although radiative cooling (not needing airflow) does exist, it reality virtually all cooling is convective (using air to carry heat away). By putting this in a box, you are blocking the air from carrying heat away from the SWM. Since this other box is noticeably bigger and there are no other significant heat sources in it, and the SWM has no fan or noticeable air vents on it, that means that all you're really doing is bringing the entire box up to almost the temperature of the SWM. There's nothing in that box that will be bothered by that and so I would have to think it isn't a problem.d0ug said:I wonder if that box is causing your problem? Since the casing of the SWM is a passive heatsink, it needs airflow around it to cool the SWM. How hot does the SWM get if you leave the door open on that box?
holes in the bottom straight up. holes in the side angled up about a 60 degree angle. be careful not to swiss cheese the SWM ( Some idiot with a lap top drilled holes in the bottom because it was too warm, swiss cheesed his motherboard.)kruegs said:Doug nailed it. I opened the box wide open and left it that way for about 35 minutes and went back out... only slightly warm to the touch. No longer like touching the sun. Lesson learned. I am either going to create some vent holes in the box... or remove it and get brave with making some new RG-6 runs. I did the install myself with no need to cut / modify or make any changes to the cables. I don't have the tools, so I would have to buy some locally.
Toughts on possible swiss-cheesing the box for ventilation? ;-)
http://www.swm8.com/DViper2399 said:I hate to sound dumb but what exactly is a SWM?? I googled & got some inf, but still in the dark somewhat
+1 on screen. and watch out for leaf cutter bees trying to fill the holes. make them at least 3/8d0ug said:You might want to look around, im sure there are some ventilated enclosures out there. If you do decide to homebrew your ventilation, then make sure whatever holes you make have window screening covering them or you are going to have all kinds of critters making your enclosure their new home.
http://www.swm8.com/