Overheating protection

IW7DMH, Enzo

Hello,

I am wondering if Flex 6x00 rigs provide a overheating protection.
Last week, when temperature went over 38°C/158°F in South of Italy, it happened two times my 6300 powered off. PA Temp was each time about 70°C so I can suppose there is a overheating protection. I just want to point out that now everything is ok and that  when it happened I was calling CQ at full power from about 30 minutes, during the Ari 90 Years Award

Thank you very much and happy summer to everybody
73' Enzo
iw7dmh

Tim - W4TME

Yes.  If it gets too hot, the radio will shut down

IW7DMH, Enzo

Thank you very much Tiim,

please could you provide a bit more informations about thresold value?
I would like to implement a visual/audio alarm  in my controller and I am wondering if I can send a command to the rig for a graceful shut-down.
Probably this control and approach could be useful in  ssdr/maestro clients.

73' Enzo

Scott N8UMW

Interesting. I would like to know this as well. This has happened several times lately, once when i was sitting right in front of the computer and radio. Instant power down. In receive mode in my air conditioned shack.

Tim - W4TME

How do you know the shutdown was thermal related?

Tim - W4TME

There are several processes that are temperature monitored.  The critical one being the FPGA temperature. The other is the PA, where the chassis fans will spin up to a higher speed once 70C is reached,  What the exact temperature thresholds are for a shutdown, I am not certain.  These would be API type questions for engineering.  You may want to send them an e-mail for more details.

Scott N8UMW

I don't. Unless the FPGA fan is intermittent. We already know that will shut it down. Never had a shut down during transmit with the PA fan ruining at high speed. In fact, the PA fan may have gone high speed four times since I purchased the radio as it is used in SSB mode the majority of the time.

Scott N8UMW

As you already know from previous posts, one reason besides power output was the FPGA fan spinning slow and making bearing noise as to the reasons I sent my radio in earlier this year. Not bashing, Tim. Here for information.

Tim - W4TME

Understood, but the context of this post is related to thermal shutdown and you indicated in your post that your radio had shut down due to overheating several times lately so I was trying to determine how you came to that conclusion. 

The FPGA throwing a fault from a fan failure is not a thermal shut down error.  It is a condition of the FPGA (or CPU) fan rotating below an accepted threshold for adequate cooling. The threshold incorporates sufficient headroom for a safety factor.  

We go to great lengths to prevent the FPGA from getting anywhere close to a thermal failure or damage point (it is the single most expensive component in the radio).  In the past 4 years, there have not been any instances of a thermal shutdown due to the FPGA overheating that I am aware of.  There have been a few temperature sensor failures, that that is a different fault condition.

Scott N8UMW

Very good. That answers a few questions I had. One being of that fan had a tach on it. Now I know it does. And the safety margin between adequate cooling and a failure. Mine has not shut down in the last few days. Now to try and figure why it did if it's not temp related.

Alan C

I don't understand the 38C and 158F? 38C is about 100F...

Greg N8GD

38 C is indeed a tad over 100 F (100.4 F to be exact). I'm sure the original post of 158 F is a typo and incorrect. That area of Italy has never seen such a temperature when the highest temperature ever recorded in history on earth was 134 F in Death Valley, California!

I just checked and it appears the original conversion was incorrect. The correct formula is:

F = C X 1.8 + 32

It appears the 32 was added in twice:

F = (32 + C) X 1.8 + 32, or (32 + 38) X 1.8 + 32 = 158 F

IW7DMH, Enzo

Yes, sorry,

it was a typo, 100.4 is the right value.
Actually 158 is the equivalent value of 70°C.

@Tim: what is the engineering email address? Up today I used to ask API questions in the community. Usually Eric or Steve ansered in few days (y)

73' Enzo
iw7dmh

Ross - K9COX

I have had this error several times "Shutting down Error FPGA fan speed". It was accompanied by fan noise and was instructed to clean the fan on a help ticket. It has not recurred in spite of not cleaning the fan since the radio is operated in a normal home environment. I believe there are several others that have experienced.this however I know Flex would take care of the problem if necessary. 

Tim - W4TME

http://www.flexradio.com/amateur-products/flex-6000-signature-series/smartsdr-api/

Click on the API Support tab.  The e-mail address is there.