Re: Burnt Spot on Mini Controller

["Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx>]

> Has anyone figured out how to keep the burnt/discolored/brown spot
> from appearing on the X10 Mini Controller escutcheon. It has appeared
> on every one I own.

PC overclockers use a heat sink paste that's also a glue to add cooling to
various support chips.  You could use it to glue a bit of copper wire to
each diode to wick away some heat.  There's room to mount a small spiral
coil of copper wire on the PCB board.

> I assume its the zener diode located under that spot thats getting hot
> but has anyone replaced it with a bigger one or relocated it?

Looking again at the circuit board it looks so spacious and simple that even
*I* could work on it.  Desolder the diodes, and move them to the wide open
real estate towards the other end of the board.  I don't think the added
length of wire will affect the circuit much.

When they are off in the corner they'll be really easy to heat sink without
the solder tail problem. Also, you can mount them on the *bottom* of the
heat sink, thus greatly increasing heat transfer away from the spot on top
of the case.  I'd still drill the air vent on the case bottom.  Just like
modern PC's, you can build the most efficient heat sink ever, but it doesn't
matter unless the heat extracted has some place outside to go.

I'll bet with a little handiwork (and providing you could pull 12VDC from
somewhere on the board), this fan:

http://www.newark.com/product-details/text/CD121/68228.html

might work (Type 1204KL 25mm SQ x 10mm (0.98" SQ. x 0.4")

If you mounted the MC on higher rubber feet than stock, you actually would
have the room!  (And the only chopped, raised and turbocharged
mini-controller in existence!)  It almost looks like the standard 2" fan
found in drive bay coolers would fit.

The switch side of the mini controller is here

http://www.geocities.com/ido_bartana/mc460-12.pdf

and here's the component side:

http://www.geocities.com/ido_bartana/mc460-22.pdf

Vcc is 17.5 volts DC so you could power it from the circuit board.  Might ha
ve to upgrade the fuse wire, though.

If you're really determined to cool those beasties:

http://www.heatpipe.com/heatpipes.htm  :-)

You've reminded me that there's something to be said for the old BSR
chocolate brown and black color scheme.  Like the Spartans wearing red
cloaks to conceal any wounds to their enemies, brown and black devices won't
show scorchmarks!

They made those cases in black - I have an IR controller and an RF repeater
that are the same factor as the mini-controller in fade-resistant black
FWIW, most of the older white Powerhouse stuff I have is fading to a sickly
yellow green, at least anything that gets exposed to direct sunlight.  The
20 year-old brown BSR modules are still brown!  Unfortunately, several have
died just this year so I suspect even those stalwart modules have a limited
life span.  I still have a dozen or so more left working, so maybe those
were just the "premature" failures.  :-)

Happy cooling!

--
Bobby G.