Fan question

[Facelift]

Heres one thing I noticed and what could be a remedy. The fan in my III blows directly on the tubes but not all of them equally. I used to own a Mesa 2:90 power amp and the fan was put in reverse so it sucks the heat and blows it away from the amp. Has anyone reversed the fan in thier Mark and did it make any noticable difference in tone. It just seems to me that having the air directly blow on the tubes will keep them too cool...possibly. Generally speaking, I would think you would get similiar cooling but have better results using negative pressure instead of positive pressure.

Discuss.

 

[MrMarkIII]

Heat rises.
Where'd you get that engineering degree? Glenn Beck University?

 

[Facelift]

ya think?

Doesnt matter what heat does, the point is to move the heat created by the tubes away from them right? One would think, since air moves, and "heat rises" in your case, that moving the fan and having it pull the heat and blow it away from the amp it wouldnt hurt anything. May keep the tubes warmer but not enough to hurt the amp Im thinking. What does engineering have to do with this? :roll: :lol:

 

[>Photi G<]

I'm not sure how fan direction and run temperature translates into better tone... :?

 

[MrMarkIII]

I will grant you that amps (at least mine) do sound better when warmed up, not when too cold.
From a physics standpoint, the idea is to blow cooler air ONTO the tubes, not suck the heat away, and by the way, heat up the reverb tank in the process. Try reversing the radiator fan in your pickup truck - see how long that works. Having a heat wave, bunky? Just open all the windows and blow all that hot air out of the house.
And yes, "heat rises", not just "in my case", but pretty much all the time.
At least in this universe.
Call up Mesa Boogie, ask for Randall, and ask him "what engineering has to do with it". We'll wait.
I blame the school system. :lol:

 

[JOEY B.]

I'm not sure how fan direction and run temperature translates into better tone... :?

It doesn't. The whole heating the tubes (tone) has to do with current draw through the tube, and not the actual temperature of the glass. That said, you could bias the tubes very hot, put a BIG fan on them and get great tone and better lifespan. In theory, of course. :wink:

 

[Facelift]

I will grant you that amps (at least mine) do sound better when warmed up, not when too cold.
From a physics standpoint, the idea is to blow cooler air ONTO the tubes, not suck the heat away, and by the way, heat up the reverb tank in the process. Try reversing the radiator fan in your pickup truck - see how long that works. Having a heat wave, bunky? Just open all the windows and blow all that hot air out of the house.
And yes, "heat rises", not just "in my case", but pretty much all the time.
At least in this universe.
Call up Mesa Boogie, ask for Randall, and ask him "what engineering has to do with it". We'll wait.
I blame the school system. :lol:

Then you should ask Randall if he went to the same schooling system becasue like mentioned before, I owned a MESA 2:90 power amp and the fan was NOT blowing toward the tubes, it was blowing away from them to draw the heat away from the amp, rather than bringing cool air into it. In fact, the computer Im on, the fan in the back of it is pulling air/heat out of it as well. hmm. Surely its going to explode soon.

 

[willrock]

this thread is starting to get funny. :lol:

 

[dodger916]

This discussion needs more light and less heat. :wink:

Being that tube guts exist in the insulation of a vacuum, wouldn't cooling the glass container have minimal (if any) effect on the temperature of the tube internals? I thought the fan was meant to protect the chassis and internal components from the heat emitted from tubes. This is especially acute in Mark amps where the chassis is above the rising heat from tubes, and the chassis may act to trap the heat. If my conclusions are correct, I would think the positive pressure of a fan blowing cooler air directly toward the chassis would be more effective at cooling it than the negative pressure of an exhaust fan, even though the same volume of air is being moved.

 

[>Photi G<]

Then you should ask Randall if he went to the same schooling system becasue like mentioned before, I owned a MESA 2:90 power amp and the fan was NOT blowing toward the tubes, it was blowing away from them to draw the heat away from the amp, rather than bringing cool air into it. In fact, the computer Im on, the fan in the back of it is pulling air/heat out of it as well. hmm. Surely its going to explode soon.

How would Randall know? He was an English Major. :lol:

But in the reality of the situation, There is no good positioning for the fan in a 2:90 to accomodate for an intake. The fan sucks the hot air out, therefore creating a vacuum inside the tube housing, therefore drawing cold air in. It all works out in the end.

The Marks are different though, if you reversed the fan in your Mark combo, it'd be pulling the hot air into the combo, where there is no exhaust exit, so that wouldn't work.

 

[willrock]

this thread is starting to get funny. :lol:

I've risen and become a fan of this thread.

hey George, how yah doin man, i still lurk around a lot but i just feel like posting to this very interesting thread. 8)