Stacking K3, KAT500 and KPA500

[Jerry]

Good morning all,

 

I am in the process of making my station a S02R operation for contest. I
have been planning the layout of the station and the thought came that if I
stack the K3 at the bottom, with the KAT400 on top of the K3 with the
KPA500, it would solve the space issue. It rasises questions about :

1.       Would the K3 support the stack?

2.       Will I be having heat issues. I use RTTY (FSK) quite a bit and
noticed that the K3 PA temp is about 45 to 47C when driving the KPA500 full
500 watts.

There may be other issues, but at this time, I think the major ones would be
weight and heat.

 

Best regards,

 

Jerry, W1IE

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[AC6SL]

On Tue, Mar 21, 2017 at 4:43 AM, Jerry <[hidden email]> wrote:
> ... planning the layout of the station and the thought came that if I
> stack the K3 at the bottom, with the KAT400 on top of the K3 with the
> KPA500, it would solve the space issue. It raises questions about :
> 1.       Would the K3 support the stack?
> 2.       Will I be having heat issues. ....

In 2014, I built a light-weight PVC rack mount to stack my K3, KPA500, KAT500.

It is pictured on slides 5, 6, and 7 of this presentation:
https://www.slvarc.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Homebrew_2015.pdf

There is enough separation between the units to allow free air flow.

The cabling is still a mess, but easier to work on versus side-by-side
as shown in slide 4.

-John AC6SL
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[Dick Dievendorff-4]

I use bamboo Seville shoe racks from Costco.  I have a bunch of these to
store shoe boxes of various parts and cables.

https://www.costco.com/Seville-Classics-Solid-Bamboo-3-tier-Shoe-Rack,-Bronz
e-Finish.product.100289769.html

I have K3 + SP3 on the bottom, KPA500 + P3 in middle, KAT500, YCCC SO2R box,
antenna switch, WinKey, LP-100A on the next shelf up, and I still have the
top shelf top free for a phone and gear that's not in immediate use.

I have a few other pieces of stuck here and there as well.

Mine doesn't spin around well, though...  

The newer ones of these are much more rigid than earlier versions. The amp
doesn't sag at all, and I have 2" of room above the amp to the next shelf.

73 de Dick, K6KR

-----Original Message-----
From: Elecraft [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of John
Nogatch
Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2017 06:19
Cc: Elecraft Reflector <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Stacking K3, KAT500 and KPA500

On Tue, Mar 21, 2017 at 4:43 AM, Jerry <[hidden email]> wrote:
> ... planning the layout of the station and the thought came that if I
> stack the K3 at the bottom, with the KAT400 on top of the K3 with the
> KPA500, it would solve the space issue. It raises questions about :
> 1.       Would the K3 support the stack?
> 2.       Will I be having heat issues. ....

In 2014, I built a light-weight PVC rack mount to stack my K3, KPA500,
KAT500.

It is pictured on slides 5, 6, and 7 of this presentation:
https://www.slvarc.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Homebrew_2015.pdf

There is enough separation between the units to allow free air flow.

The cabling is still a mess, but easier to work on versus side-by-side as
shown in slide 4.

-John AC6SL
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delivered to [hidden email]

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[Ramon Tristani-2]

Nice setup. But what a tangled mess of cables! Using PVC is a great idea but I wonder if it is stiff enough not to sway under the weight of the equipment. It doesn’t show but did you add some cross members to strengthen the frame? Maybe its about time for Elecraft to work on something to integrate their K3 related components without the need for so many interconnecting cables.

Ramon - NQ9V

> On Mar 21, 2017, at 9:18 AM, John Nogatch <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Mar 21, 2017 at 4:43 AM, Jerry <[hidden email]> wrote:
>> ... planning the layout of the station and the thought came that if I
>> stack the K3 at the bottom, with the KAT400 on top of the K3 with the
>> KPA500, it would solve the space issue. It raises questions about :
>> 1.       Would the K3 support the stack?
>> 2.       Will I be having heat issues. ....
>
> In 2014, I built a light-weight PVC rack mount to stack my K3, KPA500, KAT500.
>
> It is pictured on slides 5, 6, and 7 of this presentation:
> https://www.slvarc.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Homebrew_2015.pdf
>
> There is enough separation between the units to allow free air flow.
>
> The cabling is still a mess, but easier to work on versus side-by-side
> as shown in slide 4.
>
> -John AC6SL
> ______________________________________________________________
> 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]

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