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KPA1500 S/N 160 delivered today

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Roy Koeppe

KPA1500 S/N 160 delivered today

Works perfectly so far. The fans have never come on during my testing
periods, including at full power. Power supply fans under the table are
quiet. Really like! Low drive power. Was ordered 8-25-17 at 0900 CA time.

73, Roy K6XK

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Re: KPA1500 S/N 160 delivered today

After having played with mine extensively last night, I was under the impression that the fans would come on automatically when the temp reached a certain degree.That is not the case. Mine was defaulted at fan speed zero, which is fans off. You have to change the menu item for fans to one of your liking. I had read a few postshere on the reflector about 2 being an acceptable number. I agree.
If you crank it up to max (5) you might scare the dog, be careful, hi.
BillK3WJV

On Tuesday, May 15, 2018, 5:59:02 PM EDT, Roy Koeppe <[hidden email]> wrote:

Works perfectly so far. The fans have never come on during my testing
periods, including at full power. Power supply fans under the table are
quiet. Really like! Low drive power. Was ordered 8-25-17 at 0900 CA time.

73, Roy K6XK

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Roy Koeppe

Re: KPA1500 S/N 160 delivered today

Bill, default setting is fan "0" -- then they remain off until needed as amp
heats up with use. All automatically. So you hear no noise while you're just
listening to receiver, etc.

Roy K6XK Iowa

After having played with mine extensively last night, I was under the
impression that the fans would come on automatically when the temp reached a
certain degree.That is not the case. Mine was defaulted at fan speed zero,
which is fans off. You have to change the menu item for fans to one of your
liking. I had read a few postshere on the reflector about 2 being an
acceptable number. I agree.
If you crank it up to max (5) you might scare the dog, be careful, hi.
BillK3WJV

On Tuesday, May 15, 2018, 5:59:02 PM EDT, Roy Koeppe <[hidden email]>
wrote:

Works perfectly so far. The fans have never come on during my testing
periods, including at full power. Power supply fans under the table are
quiet. Really like! Low drive power. Was ordered 8-25-17 at 0900 CA time.

73, Roy K6XK

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Larry (K8UT)

Re: KPA1500 S/N 160 delivered today

In reply to this post by Elecraft mailing list

Bill,

My KPA1500 also defaulted to FAN SPEED MIN = 0, but that is not fans off
(at least not on my amplifier).

My fans engage at 60c (low), 65c (medium) and 70c (egads).

Is there a menu explanation somewhere about the start/stop temps and
speeds? I would like a little more hysteresis in the 60c setting: start
at 60c but continue cooling until temp drops to 50c. That might work a
little better when running digital modes with long Tx/Rx intervals.

-larry (K8UT)

------ Original Message ------
From: "Bill Stravinsky via Elecraft" <[hidden email]>
To: "Elecraft Reflector" <[hidden email]>
Sent: 2018-05-18 15:41:49
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] KPA1500 S/N 160 delivered today

>After having played with mine extensively last night, I was under the
>impression that the fans would come on automatically when the temp
>reached a certain degree.That is not the case. Mine was defaulted at
>fan speed zero, which is fans off. You have to change the menu item for
>fans to one of your liking. I had read a few postshere on the reflector
>about 2 being an acceptable number. I agree.
>If you crank it up to max (5) you might scare the dog, be careful, hi.
>BillK3WJV
>
>On Tuesday, May 15, 2018, 5:59:02 PM EDT, Roy Koeppe <[hidden email]>
>wrote:
>
>Works perfectly so far. The fans have never come on during my testing
>periods, including at full power. Power supply fans under the table are
>quiet. Really like! Low drive power. Was ordered 8-25-17 at 0900 CA
>time.
>
>73, Roy K6XK
>
>
>______________________________________________________________
>Elecraft mailing list
>Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
>Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
>Post: mailto:[hidden email]
>
>This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
>Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
>Message delivered to [hidden email]
>
>______________________________________________________________
>Elecraft mailing list
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>Post: mailto:[hidden email]
>
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>Message delivered to [hidden email]

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Re: KPA1500 S/N 160 delivered today

In reply to this post by Elecraft mailing list

I can only give you a half a "duh". The preliminary manual supplied with the amp only gives you the menu description of fan speed and it doesn't really describe the operation.The paragraph in the online manual labelled "Amplifier Cooling" is NOT in that preliminary manual. The half a duh is for the first line of the menu description of "fan speed min".It says the speed varies per temp but after that sentence there is not much of a description. It then says greater than zero all the way up to all fans running, leaving you in the dark. It doesn't explain it like you or Roy explained it.
I really figured it would work like you explained but unless you read the online manual you are missing the amplifier cooling paragraph. Thanks to you and Roy for clearing thisup for me.
BillK3WJV

On Friday, May 18, 2018, 7:59:34 PM EDT, Bob McGraw K4TAX <[hidden email]> wrote:

Bill:

Per the manual if Fan Speed is set to 0 which is the default, the fans
are not on until needed. The values of 1, 2, 3 etc will cause the fans
to run at the selected minimum speed all of the time, but the fans will
increment to a higher speed as called for by the internal heat sink
temperature. If you use 0 the fans will be off until needed. This
is not related to the fans in the power supply.

73

Bob, K4TAX

On 5/18/2018 2:41 PM, Bill Stravinsky via Elecraft wrote:
> After having played with mine extensively last night, I was under the impression that the fans would come on automatically when the temp reached a certain degree.That is not the case. Mine was defaulted at fan speed zero, which is fans off. You have to change the menu item for fans to one of your liking. I had read a few postshere on the reflector about 2 being an acceptable number. I agree.
> If you crank it up to max (5) you might scare the dog, be careful, hi.
> BillK3WJV

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Re: KPA1500 S/N 160 delivered today

In reply to this post by Larry (K8UT)

Larry
The zero just means that the fans are off (manually). You can set the fans to be on at speeds 1 through 5 regardless of temp. They will stay on continually.That said, the fans will operate automatically according to temp. They will ramp up as the temp increases. I think the first to engage is the center fan but youcan easily see this yourself. I did some CQing in the King of Spain contest to get the temp up and test things out. They indeed came on at 60C. I forgetwhere I stopped, I think at 71C, but the fans will come on starting at 60C with the fan speed on zero.
I will give it a more robust test this Wednesday during the cwts but that is only a one hour test. During WPX at the end of the month I will probably set thefan speed to 2 to get more cooling power below 60C. When the PF1 & PF2 buttons become programmable I will probably set them to turn the fans on or off.For me a fan speed of 2 is acceptable during a major contest situation even with headphones off which I really never do normally.

I did find it interesting tonight to see my shack tv get blanked out on xmit. I only checked 3 bands. TV was ok on 80mtrs but blanked the picture and soundout on 20 & 40 mtrs, hi. That never happened with either of my tube amps. I will look into that at a later date.
Good luck with your amp.
BillK3WJV
p.s. The pwr supply fans run whenever you turn the amp on but fans set at zero no amp fans should be on until 60C.

On Friday, May 18, 2018, 6:07:03 PM EDT, Larry (K8UT) <[hidden email]> wrote:

Bill,

My KPA1500 also defaulted to FAN SPEED MIN = 0, but that is not fans off
(at least not on my amplifier).

My fans engage at 60c (low), 65c (medium) and 70c (egads).

Is there a menu explanation somewhere about the start/stop temps and
speeds? I would like a little more hysteresis in the 60c setting: start
at 60c but continue cooling until temp drops to 50c. That might work a
little better when running digital modes with long Tx/Rx intervals.

-larry (K8UT)

------ Original Message ------
From: "Bill Stravinsky via Elecraft" <[hidden email]>
To: "Elecraft Reflector" <[hidden email]>
Sent: 2018-05-18 15:41:49
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] KPA1500 S/N 160 delivered today