PSU & Cover...

[Manoet]

    Here's a side-by-side pic of the PSU and heat-dissipating cover. Cover is cast aluminum and painted rather than powder-coated or other more exotic coating. It strips with Lacquer thinner or Acetone very quickly & easily.

BTW; cover looks larger in this pic than the area it sits on as I had to raise it about an inch above the electronics below it. Simply closer to the camera is only reason.

The main component that generates heat is the large squarish piece slightly above centerline and centered left-to-right. Its been surrounded by a solid HIGHLY magnetically attracted, tho not magnetic itself (ferrimagnetic) piece thats loosely fitted over the chip below it. It rattles a bit if not pressed into the blue heat transfer matrix on inside of cover and a matching piece of that same material on its backside between it and underside of chrome cover. That chip under the surrounding material is clearly marked "high voltage." An interesting aspect is this material shows zero continuity/conductivity... no ohms whatsoever yet feels eerily metal-like. While I'm open to a more experienced explanation I'm forced to concede it's a ceramic ferrite bead as that's the only material I know of than can be both magnetc, non-magnetic but attracted to magnets and simultaneously non-conductive. In light of a better explanation I'll proceed with this thought process.

A good thing that may come from this is how easy access to the PSU is. Its only 4 screws and accessible via removing the rear cover with no other part removals to gain access to its insides. There "may" be cooling affects to be had. While that blue thermal transfer matrix seems to perform adequately once it gets up to temp. But it's slow to respond and takes a VERY long time to cool and shed its heat once things are turned off. Not what I personally want to see with DPM turned on. It would take forever for temp sensors to respond to power (heat) raising & lowering.

My plan here is to apply a small bead of silicone, applied with a toothpick or similar on the left & right ends of that piece on both the top and bottom of the PCB. You can see the small gap to right of that piece in pic and there's a similarly sized gap on opposite side and that piece moving left-to-right is where the rattle originates. That will eliminate any possibility for rattling when moving the case around. And silicone can easily tolerate 400-450*F temps continuously, long-term. I want that area inside the box to respond to temp swings much quicker than it did before removal. I'll remove all the blue-goo related to PSU at the same time from Devialet top and PS cover. I'll be able to know immediately when up and running again if there's any worthwhile temperature effect by simply keeping an eye on the "supply" temps on the GUI. And if I need to go internal, as I said previously, that particular part is easily accessible. I can be in & out in under 20 minutes with a tweak or two if necessary.

I'll be revisiting this thread as the project moves thru this particular aspect of the modifications.

Can anyone look at the PSU circuitry on the PCB from the above picture and tell me with any assurance which little part is the thermal sensor? I have an idea but want a 2nd and preferably a 3rd confirmation before relying on my idea as I'm incredibly weak in recognizing electronic bits & pieces. Worst case I can run it over to a friend's computer repair shop as he'll likely know at a glance.

[Manoet]

If you're curious about things like the blue transfer pad media as is used in the Devialet the place to go learn about it is forums for Gamer's Consoles and Gamer's PC's. Those guys have been dealing with massive heat issues for years. They build systems that are so tweaked out, pissed off and off-the-charts modified that even tho they must respect the 65*C temps Devialet recommends staying under that they're delighted to be able to maintain a constant 62*C. In fact they accept that as we accept +/- 40*C. They use things like chilled water circulation thru copper/aluminum tubing routed thru HUGE internal/external heat sinks. And lots of that thermal transfer pad matrix found in the Devialet. Big difference is nary a one of em would be caught dead using the blue regardless of manufacturer. Could be 3M or Chinese, doesn't matter. Without exception the pro's are using a material called "Phobya" exclusively for serious game machines. And while like the blue material in our machines is offered in many thicknesses they stick with just one thickness; 1mm. If they need thicker they layer up. If its a little too thick they roll it out with the side of smooth glass jars, teflon-coated rolling pins on flat pieces of glass and other smooth clean surfaces. These guys are deadly serious about this. Young men mostly after my own heart tweak-wise albeit perhaps with rich parents or high income .com/broker careers/jobs and no wives would be my guess. Many of these gaming machines are upwards of $15-$20k, some well over TWICE that!! And buying off-the-rack won't be anywhere near this level of competitive. These are all custom, one-off, purpose built race cars! And these guys know thermal transfer 'stickum' pads like the backs of their hands and can quote temps with various thickness, color & recipe pads instantly from memory.

These guys leave no stone unturned in their relentless pursuit of cooler running temps. They deal vigorously in all three methods of heat dissipation, ie; conduction, convection & radiation and to the nth degree at EVERY turn!

They use and recommend the following exclusively at EVERY forum. Its the hands-down and running away preference and has been for a couple years tho the more innovative keep trying new product that comes along but so far they always find their way back to this product.They tear into their machines like I go thru white cotton crew socks! And apparently seams are ok with this stuff. It works just as well as one-piece as long as multi-part pieces are spaced very closely together and touching. But trapped air bubbles are a B-I-G no-no! And they can't emphasize that strongly enough espousing analogies like a 3mm air bubble trapped under the center of a 1mm X 25mm square pad reduces it's thermal efficiency over 50%! This particular thermal pad material is touted as over 550% more thermally conductive than a silver thermal paste!

So 3 guesses as to what I've opted to use on reassembly and first two don't count! I didn't 'want' to use any of this on reassembly but I simply cannot make that happen. I have 6 pieces of 400mm X 400mm X 1mm of this ordered this weekend from Amazon for delivery Wednesday. Way more than I need or can use initially but if I have to go back inside even once I'll be glad I did. You can easily lift & reposition this material during original installation but once its 'baked' on it's toast as far as lifting/re-positioning is concerned. Easily removed even when old/dried but self-destructs upon removal after a short term heat-cure. Doesn't break my heart its a nice dark-gray blackish color to match all the other Devialet PCB's and my Case once anodized even if it can't be seen from outside the box.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Phobya-Thermal-p...0641636270

[Rufus McDufus]

Good stuff! I'm moderately into building gaming PCs and am writing this on my one which at two years old is positively ancient compared with state-of-the-art now but I agree about the heat pads. Interestingly someone at Devialet did tell me recently about the perils of air bubbles in their own thick blue heat pads and this was one worry when the units are taken apart. I understand it's not totally uncommon for dealers and Devialet to be told that a unit is getting hotter than it used to, and it's often due to the unit being opened and the heat pad not making full contact afterwards.
I've considered in the past a computer water-cooling unit on the top of the Devialet but effectiveness, practicality and potential downsides regarding background noise, EM noise etc. have always put me off. It would make more sense to have the fan and motors (say) the other side of a wall!

[thumb5]

Who knows what Devialet is thinking? Only thing I know to be true is this stuff would make a better potholder than thermally conductive medium.

If you're curious about things like the blue transfer pad media as is used in the Devialet the place to go learn about it is forums for Gamer's Consoles and Gamer's PC's. ... They use things like chilled water circulation thru copper/aluminum tubing routed thru HUGE internal/external heat sinks. And lots of that thermal transfer pad matrix found in the Devialet.

Who'd have thought it...turns out the blue pads were for heat transfer, and indeed it's a widely-used method for transferring heat out of space-constrained electronics.  You're welcome...

(Sorry, couldn't resist.)

[Manoet]

Thank you so much for all your help in figuring it out for me. Dunno how I'd get along without you!

[kenreau]

Manoet - way to go with another cool project to follow along with interest.  I encountered the same blue tack like pads while going through my D200 and power supply enclosure.  Sorry, I'm not talented at identifying the variety of electrical semiconductors outside of ID'ing the DAC and DSP chips.  I was looking for rectifiers to see what caliber they might be as another possible upgrade if not a hexfred grade.  Way too many small components and efficient use of space on those circuit boards for my comfort level of swapping more parts out.

On a related note, can anyone provide info regarding how hot is too hot (or ideal) for our Devialets? 

Reading about all the firmware updates & disappointing issues the past 6 months, I elected to not update until this weekend.  I made the full updates and was anticipating a slightly cooler running temperatures from reading about an improved power management enhancement.  After playing music a few hours my display showed the following temperatures;

A amp 55 *C

D amp 46*C

Supply 51*C

After this running time, the outside top cover is so hot it is barely reasonable to leave a hand on it.  This just seems intuitively too hot from my perspective and sparked my interest from reading this thread.  

As a side note, during the firmware & configuration updates, I also reduced the power output watts from the max. 200 watts down to 80 watts.  I've experienced the issue where the sound quality seems to suffer at lower volume levels and it was suggested that it may be improved by reducing the power output.  In the brief few hours of listening to the changes, it does seem to have improved the lower volume sensitivity SQ.  This also makes me wonder if the amplifier is working harder at 80 watts to drive my speaker and may be contributing to the hot running temperature.

Thx
Kenreau

[Manoet]

Thanks kenreau and if you can identify the DAC/DSP chips you're way ahead of me! I know 'about' where the DAC is as there's only one place it could be to have an advertised "less than 2" path to the speaker binding posts. And I know where the PSU is and the digital board. I know approx where the analog board is but couldn't draw a line around its boundary if my life depended on it! In reality we're not very far apart.

I believe Devialet states that up to 65*C is safe. And I've read at PC forums that same number is tossed around a lot. No idea what begins to go south after 65*C. But any time we're talking Devialet temps there's some other numbers without which our GUI's display temps don't mean much. 1.) listening level, 2) DPM on/off, 3) ambient temps etc. I also suspect speaker efficiency and ohm load to be a factor. All things that contribute to a greater/lesser degree to our onboard temps. After numerous tests I find numbers to be pretty meaningless until after a solid 5 hours of playing. I used to believe 3 was adequate till I kept my eyes on things a bit longer then chose 5 hours as my minimum even tho differential averages within the final two hours were within a single degree in all cases.

My last baseline temp measurements for comparison after reassembly are as follows just prior to disassembly:
DPM/off Volume -28 to -34 Ambient 24-25*C Wall-Mounted
A: 44
D: 45
S: 47

One thing I do know empirically is if heat transfer size is any consideration the digital board should be hotter than everything else as its thermal pad real estate dwarfs the others and by a huge margin: 60mm wide X 150mm long on the underside between belly pan and board then has another thermal pad 30mm wide by 150mm long attached to the heat cooling pan mounted atop the digital board. All other thermal pads inside the machine could be cut from a single 100mm square pad. To me that just screams H-O-T on the digital board. Its also the board centered in the top of the lower belly pan between the 2 viewing windows and I'm sure why the belly pan runs so warm with that ginormous thermal pad in contact with and sandwiched between the board and the belly pan!

Your numbers look a little warmish but nothing that I'd raise an eyebrow over if DPM is off. A little too warm for my preference with DPM on tho not threateningly so. The analog board seems hotter than I remember others but again, not dangerously so and since DPM can easily be a 10 degree difference I'll wait to hear further from you. Some have said these units run cooler when vertically mounted. Mine runs almost identical internal temps vertical or horizontally mounted. However my upper two quadrants run significantly higher external temps when mounted vertically then the same two quadrants mounted horizontally (measured with an infra red thermometer or surface probe).

BTW I got the male IEC out of the Devialet over the weekend. Now debating if I want to go ahead with the 20A Furutech FI-33 Rhodium replacement while in there and eliminate the nasty Schurter filter. I've NEVER met one of those I liked or one that ran as quiet as no filter whatsoever there! I'll be surprised if you can get it out without removing the primary PCB as you need to get at it from above & below without a special tool which I'm sure Devialet has. But necessity being the mother of invention and you being a resourceful guy I wouldn't bet against you!

[f1eng]

Manoet - way to go with another cool project to follow along with interest.  I encountered the same blue tack like pads while going through my D200 and power supply enclosure.  Sorry, I'm not talented at identifying the variety of electrical semiconductors outside of ID'ing the DAC and DSP chips.  I was looking for rectifiers to see what caliber they might be as another possible upgrade if not a hexfred grade.  Way too many small components and efficient use of space on those circuit boards for my comfort level of swapping more parts out.

On a related note, can anyone provide info regarding how hot is too hot (or ideal) for our Devialets? 

Reading about all the firmware updates & disappointing issues the past 6 months, I elected to not update until this weekend.  I made the full updates and was anticipating a slightly cooler running temperatures from reading about an improved power management enhancement.  After playing music a few hours my display showed the following temperatures;

A amp 55 *C

D amp 46*C

Supply 51*C

After this running time, the outside top cover is so hot it is barely reasonable to leave a hand on it.  This just seems intuitively too hot from my perspective and sparked my interest from reading this thread.  

As a side note, during the firmware & configuration updates, I also reduced the power output watts from the max. 200 watts down to 80 watts.  I've experienced the issue where the sound quality seems to suffer at lower volume levels and it was suggested that it may be improved by reducing the power output.  In the brief few hours of listening to the changes, it does seem to have improved the lower volume sensitivity SQ.  This also makes me wonder if the amplifier is working harder at 80 watts to drive my speaker and may be contributing to the hot running temperature.

Thx
Kenreau

PMFJI but that is very hot for 8.1.3 using power management.
The principle route for evacuating heat from the circuitry of a Devialet is via thermally conductive pads to the baseplate. If you have removed the baseplate of your amp for any reason and not carefully bedded the thermal pad back onto the baseplate when refitting that would be the most likely explanation for this problem IME.
It is pointless cooling the top, since it is not in thermal contact with anything of consequence.

I get 36/34/39 on 8.1.3 on my 800 listening loud.

[Confused]

The D-Premier / D250 is supposed to have superior cooling due to the design of it's (much more expensive) case. Does anyone actually know what the difference in the case is compared to. D200? When I discussed this with one of the Devialet engineers once, he said many things relating to transient cooling of specific components. How does this actually work?

Any ideas?

[kenreau]

Thanks kenreau and if you can identify the DAC/DSP chips you're way ahead of me! I know 'about' where the DAC is as there's only one place it could be to have an advertised "less than 2" path to the speaker binding posts. And I know where the PSU is and the digital board. I know approx where the analog board is but couldn't draw a line around its boundary if my life depended on it! In reality we're not very far apart.

I believe Devialet states that up to 65*C is safe. And I've read at PC forums that same number is tossed around a lot. No idea what begins to go south after 65*C. But any time we're talking Devialet temps there's some other numbers without which our GUI's display temps don't mean much. 1.) listening level, 2) DPM on/off, 3) ambient temps etc. I also suspect speaker efficiency and ohm load to be a factor. All things that contribute to a greater/lesser degree to our onboard temps. After numerous tests I find numbers to be pretty meaningless until after a solid 5 hours of playing. I used to believe 3 was adequate till I kept my eyes on things a bit longer then chose 5 hours as my minimum even tho differential averages within the final two hours were within a single degree in all cases.

My last baseline temp measurements for comparison after reassembly are as follows just prior to disassembly:
DPM/off    Volume -28 to -34   Ambient 24-25*C Wall-Mounted
A: 44
D: 45
S: 47

One thing I do know empirically is if heat transfer size is any consideration the digital board should be hotter than everything else as its thermal pad real estate dwarfs the others and by a huge margin: 60mm wide X 150mm long on the underside between belly pan and board then has another thermal pad 30mm wide by 150mm long attached to the heat cooling pan mounted atop the digital board. All other thermal pads inside the machine could be cut from a single 100mm square pad. To me that just screams H-O-T on the digital board. Its also the board centered in the top of the lower belly pan between the 2 viewing windows and I'm sure why the belly pan runs so warm with that ginormous thermal pad in contact with and sandwiched between the board and the belly pan!

Your numbers look a little warmish but nothing that I'd raise an eyebrow over if DPM is off. A little too warm for my preference with DPM on tho not threateningly so. The analog board seems hotter than I remember others but again, not dangerously so and since DPM can easily be a 10 degree difference I'll wait to hear further from you. Some have said these units run cooler when vertically mounted. Mine runs almost identical internal temps vertical or horizontally mounted. However my upper two quadrants run significantly higher external temps when mounted vertically then the same two quadrants mounted horizontally (measured with an infra red thermometer or surface probe).

BTW I got the male IEC out of the Devialet over the weekend. Now debating if I want to go ahead with the 20A Furutech FI-33 Rhodium replacement while in there and eliminate the nasty Schurter filter. I've NEVER met one of those I liked or one that ran as quiet as no filter whatsoever there! I'll be surprised if you can get it out without removing the primary PCB as you need to get at it from above & below without a special tool which I'm sure Devialet has. But necessity being the mother of invention and you being a resourceful guy I wouldn't bet against you!

Good to know, thank you.  I may wait on changing out the IEC PEM to see how you manage it.  I'll only have a brief time to tinker on it over this next month.  My current notion is about the only way to do it (with a F'tech) is some means (i.e. solder, or minor bus bar like connect) of top mounting the line and neutral tangs to the top of the small power entry circuit board.  The lower ground tang should go right in the stock place.

Thx
Kenreau