6300 Fan Noise

Garyh

I recently acquired a 6300 and I know about the fan failures but after searching here I am not certain how you can tell fans are about to fail. I see posts about noise and I understand that but what type of noise indicates possible failure?

My radio has a pulsating noise when its running. Not a steady fan noise but rather a cyclic repeating noise. Almost sounds like a fan that is constantly changing speed at about a 2 Hz rate or maybe some harmonic relationship between the three fans.

This noise is quite noticeable even when liastening to on air communications. Is this a symptom of fan issues that others have heard? I can imagine the small fans would make this type of noise since I have heard CPU fan failures on computers and its a different noise.

Thanks

Gary K4MT

VE7ATJ_Don

I don't know about the 6300 and what temperature it may be running (depends upon how often/long it's transmitting for), but on my 6500, the fan runs very quietly and at a constant level.

My gut tells me you might want to open up a Help Desk ticket and get them to run through some diagnostics with you. There are tools available which will tell the fan speed and the temperature of the finals, etc.

Garyh

I opened radio and put strobe light on fans and they are steady speed but all vary somewhat. I think this is a beat f requency sound between fans. Wont open a ticket as I am not going to spend $250 or more to send it back to get fans replaced. Time for the 6300 to move along to someone that wont mind the sound.

Mike-VA3MW

There are a few concerns with replacing your own fans.

• The fans speed and air movement performance is something that is carefully measured and is part of the firmware cooling calculations. It is possible that the wrong fan will cause the radio not to boot. There is a lot of 'science' in the fans we use.
• Replacing your own fans is not a trivial exercise. If you do it wrong, you can damage the circuit board, maybe significantly with an expensive option after that. This is on the 6300, 6500 and 6700.

73

DaveC

Mike,

What is the cost (minus shipping) to replace the fans at the factory?

I bought my 6300 in Jan of 2015. Fans are a little noisy but not bad.

What about cleaning the dust? Can I do that here?

Thanks Dave KB1WOD

Mike-VA3MW

Dave,

You will have to open a support ticket and they should be able to respond to you with the details. I don't have access to that information.

Yes, you can vacuum out the dust. Try not to use compressed air since you don't want to ruin the fan by overspeeding it.

73

DaveC

Mike,

Follow up question. Should I open up the 6300 to vacuum or just just vacuum around the air slots?

Thanks

Mike-VA3MW

Yes, you should take the covers off and vacuum.

DaveC

Thanks Mike I appreciate your help!!

73 Dave KB1WOD

Garyh

I took a stethoscope and listened through the shield to the two 50 MM fans. Both of them were making the pulsating noise. After some research I discovered Jameco has the original style fans so I ordered two as well as a case fan. The case fan arrived first but made no difference other than bearing noise old fan had.

Today the 50 mm fans arreived from Jameco and I replaced both fans and now th radio is nice and quiet.

I put the old fans on the bench and oiled them but they still made the pulsating noise. Just a note, the fans in my radio were those installed from the factory when it was new. The warranty seals were still in place on the shield.

Thanks all for the replies but thanks to Jameco still have a replacement I dont need the change to the new style fans T flex repair.

Gary K4MT