Kenwood TS-480 manual Cooling diagram

●Cooling

In developing the TS-480HX, the most important issue when it came to structural design was how to arrange for sufficient cooling.

In order for this transceiver to be capable of 200W output and yet have the same compact design as the TS-50, we examined dozens of different cooling fans, various circuit board patterns, and a variety of different cooling fan layouts. After conducting several hundred different types of heat dissipation tests, we finally decided on the present structural design of the TS-480.

The principle features of this structure are as follows:

Improved cooling efficiency as a result of employing twin cooling fans;

Concentration of efficient cooling fins in one location since space limitations meant that a normal fin arrangement was not possible.

Fig. 26 illustrates how the TS-480 is cooled. The air that is sucked in through the front panel and the top and bottom of the case directly cools the surface of those internal components that are generating heat, such as the final section. At the same time, it absorbs the heat that has dispersed through the die-cast chassis before being expelled by the twin cooling fans at the rear.

Fig. 26: Cooling diagram

Blue: Die-cast aluminum chassis	Red: Heat flow from final transistors
Brown: Circuit boards	Gray: Air flow (from front panel on left)

As you can tell from this diagram, the cooling fans located at the rear must be powerful enough to be able to suck in fresh air through the intakes on the front panel. In order to make the TS-480 as compact as possible the mounting density of the internal components has been increased; for this reason, we decided to install a pair of powerful cooling fans so as to ensure a strong flow of air and the increased cooling efficiency that would result.

38