Falcon 030 cooling fan

[asteroid76]

Hi,

I've been repairing a Falcon that had some hideous desktop case and getting it back to original.

There's a Nemesis upgrade in it with a lot of wires which take the place of the cooling fan.

Does the Falcon need a fan (someone did tell me its not needed)

I'm putting it back together in its original case, and it will be for sale soon. I'm adverse to weird bodges which might break something so wanted to ask.

[dml]

When restoring/fixing machines with a Nemesis present I usually try to move it to the space next to the DALLAS clock unit, partly to shorten the high speed clock wires and partly to allow the fan to be restored as an option. The small board can be ground-strapped to the mainboard with short pieces of wick.

Have attached a pic (nearly fully installed but not quite - only pic I had with the location clear).

Depending on the install there can be wires running to the VIDEL, DMA, FPU etc. so those need a bit of care. The black/white wires running to the ACIAs are only mode switches and just need to be tidy. The purple wire to the ACIAs is a 500kHz clock so better to keep it short/tidy.

nem-after.jpg (776.82 KiB) Viewed 113 times

A lot of machines have the fan removed - you can get away with it in a cool climate - but bus boosters like this do make the chips hotter so its maybe not always a good choice.

If a fan is introduced with a booster present make sure you check noise on the power rails caused by the fan and add decoupling caps if needed to keep it quiet.

[mikro]

If the fan can do any meaningful work, the shielding must be installed -- the air flow goes beneath the metals to the CPU/PSU out of the cartridge port.

Of course, it's debatable how efficient it is but hey, you asked.

[whomper]

I have an accelerated Falcon and have installed a top silent (somewhat) fan to draw heat from the unit. I've added a 100Ohm resistor to lower its speed so that it is even more silent. I find it better than the bottom fan.

I saw it also in the afterburner installation manual.

[Steve]

The only chips in the Falcon that get hot to the touch, in my experience, is the video DAC and the DSP (and DSP RAM) Since I overclock my DSP to 50mhz I actually installed a small fan inside my Gotek which is right above the DSP.

[JezC]

The only chips in the Falcon that get hot to the touch, in my experience, is the video DAC and the DSP (and DSP RAM) Since I overclock my DSP to 50mhz I actually installed a small fan inside my Gotek which is right above the DSP.

I'd be interested to see/hear more about those mods at some point... especially as mine has a DFB1X in it as well (and the old toroidal Exxos PSU to minimise heat generated in that corner of the case).

No rush as I've still to refit the Falcon board in it's case after loaning it to Exxos at the last CL event...

[Steve]

I'd be interested to see/hear more about those mods at some point... especially as mine has a DFB1X in it as well (and the old toroidal Exxos PSU to minimise heat generated in that corner of the case).

I think I wrote about it here (FYI I cleaned up the cut-out for the fan after taking the picture)
viewtopic.php?t=6304

[JezC]

Thanks @Steve I will check that out later.