• You can now help support WorldwideDX when you shop on Amazon at no additional cost to you! Simply follow this Shop on Amazon link first and a portion of any purchase is sent to WorldwideDX to help with site costs.
  • Click here to find out how to win free radios from Retevis!

Palomar Maxi Mod

Dunno if you are willing to go this far, but I think Bergquist might make a sil-pad for it. Max cooling and no mess with heat sink compound. No need for a mica or ceramic insulator when a sil-pad is employed. Might want to check that out as an option. Just bought 100 of them from China for the to-220 type transistor (final, driver, etc). Not the same as the transistor case you show in the pic; but I'll bet they're available from somewhere for that style of case. Just sayin . . .
You can buy sheets of insulator material made by Chromerics and you can cut your own to any size you want.
https://www.digikey.com/en/product-...41-commercial-grade-electrical-insulator-pads
 
They used to make TO-220 transistors with Isolated tabs on the back and no insulation was required. Just put a small amount of grease on the back of it and screw it down. In a way like the RF transistors 1446, 2879, mrf455.
I wish they would do that again. All of those ceramic insulators are primarily for High Voltage isolation and are inferior to the isolated tab transistors. Surface imperfections will break those and the high voltage isolation is gone, or if the heat sink is flexible they break.
 
One thing about ceramic insulators is if you do anything wrong in the mounting of the transistor, they are the first to let you know by cracking. You can have your heatsink perfectly flat and simply apply to much torque on the mounting screws. That causes the aluminum around the screw hole to pull up and can distort the heatsink or transistor case enough to crack the insulator during thermal expansion.That doesn't mean to abandon the ceramic insulator, it means we have to improve our transistor mounting skills.
 
Or (ahem) bolt them down to the heat sink BEFORE you solder the leads to the pc board.

This is the correct way to limit mechanical stress on the device and was the proper procedure in manufacturing electronics back in the days. I had to work with a manufacturer on device failures and that was one of the top questions they asked whether it was bolted prior to soldering.
 
This is the correct way to limit mechanical stress on the device and was the proper procedure in manufacturing electronics back in the days. I had to work with a manufacturer on device failures and that was one of the top questions they asked whether it was bolted prior to soldering.
I thought everybody did it that way.
 
  • Like
Reactions: rabbiporkchop
We had fixtures that aligned the transistor up on the heatsink. We also used split lock washers and assembly was done with torque wrenches. When the gap on the split washer was closed you were approaching the torque specification for the mounting. We used TO-3 transistors on ceramic insulators and the were tightened in increments first one side then the other and back and forth until the torque wrench clicked.
We used REAL beefy IRF-150's and it was good for 28 amps continuous..
 
That’s a lie. That’s not what powered the laser on the Death Star. It was 13n10’s controlled by TIP36c’s.

Awesome design too. You remember how that planet exploded and was vaporized?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Tallman
That’s a lie. That’s not what powered the laser on the Death Star. It was 13n10’s controlled by TIP36c’s.

Awesome design too. You remember how that planet exploded and was vaporized?
I don't know how to tell you this but the "Death Star" was not operational at that time.
It was caused by one of the Super Bowl signals that originated from the "Mule Droppings" site on that planet.
 
  • Like
Reactions: NZ8N
Wha??? Muh thermocouple is wrong? But muh research and muh test’s. Not to mention dat video.

It’s all been a sham? A huge hoax and a lie? Not even muh surface area will save me here?

Oh lord, muh feelings.
 

dxChat
Help Users
  • No one is chatting at the moment.
  • @ BJ radionut:
    EVAN/Crawdad :love: ...runna pile-up on 6m SSB(y) W4AXW in the air
    +1
  • @ Crawdad:
    One of the few times my tiny station gets heard on 6m!:D
  • @ Galanary:
    anyone out here familiar with the Icom IC-7300 mods
  • @ Crawdad:
    7300 very nice radio, what's to hack?
  • @ kopcicle:
    The mobile version of this site just pisses me off