Batboard

Ok, I got this nice missle container thats nice and water proof. It
Used to hold two 120 mm type projectiles. It measures approximately 3 feet long, 1 foot wide, and 5 inches high.

So I figure I can get at least 3, possibly 4 Spectra's (50W) and
the systems 9000 siren/amp box in there. And some more stuff....

I figure this will be the smallest amount of space for this amount of
equipment. Also all items will be mounted Flat.

The Plan is to remove the fuel tank of a 1997 Ford Aerostar, Weld
this missle can directly to the floor of the van, and replace the fuel tank. Easy enough. Now for the cooling part.

There is an extruded aluminum heatsink that I have made approximately 3 feet long, 3 and 1/2 inches wide, 2 inches tall, with
eight 3/8 " diameter copper tubes imbedded into the extrusion
(with silicone heatsink compound of course) The whole rear end of all the spectra's PA's will be in direct contact with this heatsink/condenser unit. Two 500 watt amps, each 14 inches long
will be on top of the 3 or 4 spectras (V, U, U, 800) with there own 1/2 " copper tubing embedded into their existing heatsink.


Now the question is: will having its own radiator/fan/waterpump/Prestone II be sufficient for cooling ?

Or, will I need to pull a vacuum on the missle box, and use Freon
instead. Obviously this is the way to go, but I'm trying to avoid
a 150 pin vacuum tight military round locking connector.

I've done it both ways before, But I'm unfamiliar with the Mid Power
Spectra Radios, and I just don't really know how hot they get. I am
willing to Use A/C on it if I have to, but Like I said that connector is
going to be a problem as they don' t exactly grow on trees. And If
you don't pull a good Vaccuum, You can kiss the radio's goodbye because It will be like dropping them in a fish tank.

Thats the Main benefit of the radiator method. It won't get cold
enough to condense water, and henceforth not require a vac.
But will it be sufficient? Hmmmm..........

And don't worry, I'm not crazy, I used to work at NASA and this kind
of thing was common place there. But that was a long while ago.
(They have that exact connector I need too!!) Actually, the more I think about it, I should really try and find that connector, and use
freon and be done with it already. I already KNOW that will work.

Now I love a good project as much as the next guy but.....dude, you're driving a van, why not mount them inside the vehicle and skip all the extra mess? It's not like you have a little Geo and you are pressed for space....

I just want to know what the importance of all the extra effort is.

I'd sure like to know why all the extra work! Also, can you get that 150 pin connector? Otherwise how are you going to get the control cables out of the box?

Why in god's name are you trying to do this? Builing some sort of super secret vehicle for James Bond? All that work and no functional missles?

Explain yourself before we all award you mad sicentist of batlabs.

double post. sorry.

oops.

I still the like geek factor of looking at all my equipment once installed. Try to do it all normal then use your experience to wire an incredible security system into it. Take outher precautions to such as one-way screws and such. Obviously if someone wants it bad enough they will get it but might have to steal the whole vehicle to do it. Set up a real paging transmitter instead of those short range car alarm pagers too.

Unless space is a real problem, i'd mount it in the semi-open where it's nice to look at with the rear doors open, but hidden once closed up. Limo tint the rear or use a cover of some type.

If you must do it your way, i'd stay away from antifreeze. Use a non-conductive liquid. I think 3m makes a good one called Fluorinert. A bunch of geeks used it to supercool a computer by immersing it in this stuff and using liquid nitrogen. It was so cold that it turned this stuff into a gel practically. See it here:

http://www.octools.com/index.cgi?caller ... rsion.html

good idea with the florinert. I have used it before, and didn't even
think of it this time. Also good was the REAL paging thing.

I haven't committed to the project yet, Still waiting on the uhf radio.

Too bad I already spent 25 bucks on the can. But I might do it
some other way. I like your ideas. And like you said, it still doesn't
prevent someone from taking the whole van.

That over clocking thing was cool too. Thats the kind of stuff we
used to do on our lunch hour. Along with making my own I.C. chips,
and vaccuum tubes too for that matter. It's nice to be in a lab where every tabletop has a piece of gear on it that costs over 5M.
I'm sure the rest of my life, I will never work anywhere as cool as
a NASA owned subsiderary like I did fresh out of high school in 1986. They were nice to me too, and gave me all sorts of HP test
equip to keep. (still got the wave analyzer). And they let me build
Anything my little heart desired. This came about because I built
them some additional automated test equipment. It of course used
ln2 to cool it. I also heavily modified a Tenney Temperature Chamber so that It would have a MUCH wider temp range.

How about a couple of fans on each radio's heat sink???? My Spectra, VHF mid power running 80 watts out, is mounted heatsink UP and no problems. The 110 watt UHF Maratrack is flat and DOES get quite warm, but then junk gets thrown on it in the work van.
Once had a 35 watt Motran UHF, all solidstate!, in my 73 Dodge pick up service truck. Mounted under the drivers seat flat on the floor. I blew out the PA cause it got so hot from heat reflecting off the road to Santiago.

Well, I didn't ever use the stupid missle can. Too hard for easy access to the radios....

I used a standard 19 inch rack mount instead, mounted Face Down.

I took the assembly out of the van to photograph it. It was buried.
That is the point of being Water Cooled. It's just like remote-mount
head, but remote-mount cooling.

It allows many radios in a very small enclosure with NO fans in it.

Either an electric pump or an extra power steering pump can be
used. I use an extra transmission cooler as the radiator. I've been
thing either a 911 Oil Cooler or a Ninja Radiator would be good
choices as well for the "radiator" unit. In the Lab of course a Neslab
Chiller is used. Not too Cold though!! Water condensation would be
disasterous to the spectras. This could NOT happen in the vehicle
though, only if an idiot turns the temp control on the Chiller in the Lab.

Is there any reason that these radios really need water cooling?
Do they overheat? Won't a fan work?
Unless they are running at 100% transmit duty cycle, why?
Busy repeaters don't even overheat?
What about a cryogenically cooled system? Liquid nitrogen at -171 degrees would really cool them well! You wouldn't even need your A/C on in the summer.

Well as usual Jim Your Correct. I have found out after I built
this contraption that the additional heatsinking with the coumpound
and Extruded Aluminum with Heavy gauge Copper and what not
that it doesn't overheat at all with NO Liquid cooling. I just didn't
know that before I made it. And I was waiting for you to point that
out. Well you or Will, and then I'd just have to "eat it" for a while.
I goofed. It happens.

So I guess That I learned that radios DON'T get that hot, to need
any liquid cooling. Now However, If for some idiotic reason someone
WOULD want to Transmit Simulcast on all three Bands at Full tilt,
then Yes you would probably need at least water cooling. Liquid
Nitrogen I guess would be reserved for if you were trying to get
a couple of hundred watts out of a low power spectra.

And in fact thats really why I posted the Pic of this finally, because
its been 106 degrees here lately, and the ambient temp in the
van has been 130 degrees and the heatsink with NO Water going
through it is only ten degrees above ambient. So NO need for the
water hoses to be hooked up. I'm going to pull off the Copper
Tubing assembly, leave the heatsink AS-IS and put it back in, and
call it a day. It was a kinda neat experiment though, even though
I found out that its not necessary like Will pointed out Last Year.

I guess my main malfunction here was the fact that I didn't ASK
Will first or anybody else either for that matter. I built it first and
found it unnecessary. DOH! Oh well. Next time I'll ask questions
FIRST BEFORE Doing something stupid like this. LOL

And thank God, that Jack set me straight on how to build a repeater.
The way I was going to do it with monitoring the bit streams with
several protocol analyzers to answer some of my stupid
questions.....Well...to put it bluntly, after a short conversation, my
repeater was working instead of taking another 6 months to a year
just for more research on the serial protocols used inbetween the
micro processors inside the Spectra. I was doing the whole WRONG
thing. DOH! Again.

Like I keep saying, Radios just ain't my strong point, so Ya'll have
to bear with me while I'm still learning here.

We had some 45 watt vhf mobiles
sm50's running at 50 watts for a
QUICK repeater and they were
COOKING. WE placed them in a 12 volt electric
Cooler and it Did the Trick and we were able to
use them in an emergency for 4 days.

So When It Trouble Some Times Simple
Is Better (KISS)

Kisses from The Great White North
( Canada I Mean)

Susan157

What is that MX thingy labeled MX rib ?

How do you use that ?

do a search on "mx rib" If I remember right. He put a riib in a MX case.