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How to keep dust out of a fan cooled amplifier?

Lavane said:
As posted earlier, just buy a furnace filter. The open cell type. Kind of like a scrub pad only way less dense. Then just cut to size. I had this type once. You just pulled it out and clean it with soap and water. Then rinse with a pressure nozzle.
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I can't find them though. The hardware stores here suck.
 
on my pc case fans I use wedding vale material available at walmart by the roll for a few bucks. cut to size, colored it black and taped on. another thing I've used is the wifes old stockings stretched over the fan
 
This is one of those "if you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door." If you filter to keep dust out, the filter will eventually clog, and starve the amp of air. If you don't filter, the amp (and fan!) clog and overheat.

I like the philosophy of a fan in the rear that draws air in through a filter. That way, you can easily feel the temperature and flow of air out the front of the amp.
 
I'm a real DIY guy. I've got a ton of metal coat hangers around. I'd make frames out of one of them, wrap the thing medical gauze, and spritz it with a sticky oil. They make oils specifically for that use. You get excellent air flow and can tailor the thing exactly to what you need.
 
I have purchased from Ace Hardware in the past, window AC units type replacement filter foam sheets, that I cut to size, as needed, for inexpensive, but effective, fan filter media replacement..
This method was so inexpensive, I didn`t even bother washing the old, but just cut and replaced with new.
Juts a thought/suggestion.
 
I find that there seems to be more dust at floor level and try to keep anything with vents more than a foot off the floor.
 
mr_light said:
I find that there seems to be more dust at floor level and try to keep anything with vents more than a foot off the floor.
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Correct. IBM built lots of floor-standing controllers and computers and discovered they need much less maintenance when exhausting air at floor level and drawing it in at desktop level or above, despite that requiring stronger fans to overcome natural convection flow.
 
Bill Ferris said:
I have purchased from Ace Hardware in the past, window AC units type replacement filter foam sheets, that I cut to size, as needed, for inexpensive, but effective, fan filter media replacement..
This method was so inexpensive, I didn`t even bother washing the old, but just cut and replaced with new.
Juts a thought/suggestion.
Click to expand...

These replacement filters for window AC units are to my eyes exactly the same as the foam filters that originally came with my p500.
 
oristo said:
Correct. IBM built lots of floor-standing controllers and computers and discovered they need much less maintenance when exhausting air at floor level and drawing it in at desktop level or above, despite that requiring stronger fans to overcome natural convection flow.
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At the beginning of my 29 years at IBM we just used water cooling and kept all that dust far away!
 
loudnoises said:
These replacement filters for window AC units are to my eyes exactly the same as the foam filters that originally came with my p500.
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:beerchug:, my thoughts as well, loudnoises, for various fan cooled amps, that I`ve encountered over the years, and a whole lot cheaper than the factory replacement ones.
 
Plastic filter sheets with thin magnetic strips can be cut to size. I am using some on my present PC and have over the years used this on PLC control boxes in some pretty dirty work settings. They can easily be modified with a fine gauze material but these, as is work, well in my present not very dusty environment.

https://www.amazon.com/Filter-Plastic-Dustproof-Computer-140x140mm/dp/B00NUOR2W2 (an example)

P1071647.JPG P1071648.JPG
 
Well, this is what I am doing for the time being.

Furnace filter cut to size on the air inlet of a QSC RMX5050.

I would love a more elegant yet equally effective solution.

157877443252585186553.jpg 15787747037921412530731.jpg
 
restorer-john said:
Just take the amp out on the driveway every six months, take the lid off and hit it with the air compressor's air gun. 10 seconds and it's spotless.
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It would take a lot of disassembly to do that with a rmx5050. I took the top off to try this and decided against this approach quickly.
 
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