Topic: Anyone installing cooling fans or heat sinks? If so… (Read 13885 times)

bmwcyclist · « **on:** February 26, 2025, 08:14:17 pm »

Anyone installing cooling fans or heat sinks? If so…

Fans:

Where?
Power?

Heat sync

On what?
What size?

sigma7 · « **Reply #1 on:** February 26, 2025, 10:05:07 pm »

Quote from: bmwcyclist on February 26, 2025, 08:14:17 pm

cooling fans...

If you have a 16 or 18 MHz XLerator, you will almost certainly need something like the card cage cooling fan it was sold with. The Sapient motherboards are designed with a mounting location for such a fan, but you probably don't have one of those.

Adding a fan to cool the PSU makes a big difference in longevity in my experience. You can add it inside the PSU, or eg. on a chimney above it at the back.

Back in the day that hard drives were installed above the floppy drive, a fan was sometimes required depending on the drive.

I'll look for pictures if someone else doesn't have them handy.

bmwcyclist · « **Reply #2 on:** February 27, 2025, 11:22:29 am »

Are there any plans or photos for the card cage with fan?

sigma7 · « **Reply #3 on:** February 27, 2025, 04:47:43 pm »

Quote from: bmwcyclist on February 27, 2025, 11:22:29 am

Are there any plans or photos for the card cage with fan?

I'll find a photo or take one. The manual in the XLFan Manual topic has the connection info. I think the original XLerator manual has that info too.

There is a pic of the Sapient motherboard with fan installed in one of James Denton's blog posts: This Old Lisa: Hands-on With the Sapient Technologies Lisa 1 & 2/5 Motherboard.

edit: pics have been added to the XLFan Manual topic.

sigma7 · « **Reply #4 on:** February 28, 2025, 12:10:00 am »

Power Supply fan examples... crude and not so.

Since the PSU was designed for convection cooling, it doesn't take much airflow to cool it well. A quiet low performance fan is usually sufficient.

If you open the PSU, beware of potentially dangerous voltages that remain for a while after it is unplugged (regardless of whether it has been on or off). Leaving it unplugged for a few hours before opening it is usually sufficient to dissipate the danger, but regardless: open it at your own risk!