[time-nuts] HP and other equipment failure

Mark Spencer mspencer12345 at yahoo.ca
Fri Jun 14 16:20:56 UTC 2013


Re:  HP5370B cooling.
 
I currently have three HP5370B's that have been running for many months in a cool room (typical room temperature is under 20 degrees C even in the summer) so far without issues.   
Other than placing them away from other heat producing equipment and and double checking the ac line voltage supplied to them from a UPS system and the voltage setting of the power supply no special precautions were taken.   In the winter they provide useful heat to an otherwise cool room in my basement.    Your mileage may vary (:
 
One trick I've used on other older equipment with linear power supplies is to reduce the AC line voltage (the exact voltage depends on the equipment in question) using a variac, to cut down on the power that the pass tranistors in the power supplies need to disipate.  I've never bothered to do this with the HP5370B's but I be inclined to go down this road before I started blowing extra air over them with fans.
 
In general I agree with the comments about the serviceability of the older HP gear.  I'm hopefull that I can keep at least two of my four HP5370B's working for many years to come.    
 
Regards
Mark Spencer
 
 
 
 
 


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Message: 1
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2013 14:26:50 +0000
From: "Mark C. Stephens" <marks at non-stop.com.au>
To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
    <time-nuts at febo.com>
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] HP and other equipment failure
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Talking of Cooling HP 5370's, I have a 12V fan Gorilla taped to mine fed from a wallwart.

Not elegant, but it has reduced the heat sink temperature dramatically.

Is anyone else concerned about the heat sink temperature on the 5370?
Has anyone done a fan modification they would care to share?

Also, my 8566A RF section pass transistor heat sink gets awfully warm too, does anyone have a sensible solution?


-marki





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