Using an Amp on its side

[admin_exported]

I have an Arcam Delta 290P in the living kitchen where we spend a lot of time - especially in winter! Trouble is it is a biggish beast and space is short. One solution is to have it on it's side down the side of a cupboard. The only potential problem that I can see is that the air vents are clearly designed to function in the normal orientation, and may not work so well on their side. However we do not run it at volume and it never appears to get particularly hot.

Is it a sensible thing to do?

 

[Anonymous]

This is a case where I might consider it myself but wouldn't recommend it. You have already raised the heat issue but to add to that the amp just wasn't designed to be mounted that way. The parts inside were soldered in place taking it into account gravity will always be on their side, with gravity against them they may work loose.

 

[Tony_R]

Octopo:The parts inside were soldered in place taking it into account gravity will always be on their side, with gravity against them they may work loose.

Not likely. Most electronic components are so light that there's no chance of them working loose due to gravitational pull.

I repaired television sets for a living back in the 70's / 80's and suffice to say, there were several vertically mounted panels with components sitting horizontally - and they certainly didn't fall out....

You would most likely be ok using the amp on it's side, so long as you don't play it as very high volumes for extended periods, and you allow a good amount of airflow around it.

Using a bit of common sense, checking it periodically to see how hot it's getting will also be a good indicator as to whether it's happy there or not.

 

[Anonymous]

Transformer? You clearly have more experience than me in this field and like I said I'd probably give it a go but as it wasn't designed to be mounted this way there could be problems.

 

[Tony_R]

Octopo:Transformer? You clearly have more experience than me in this field and like I said I'd probably give it a go but as it wasn't designed to be mounted this way there could be problems.

The transformer will work in any orientation.

If you go back to much, much earlier days, transformers were sometimes filled with oil (I believe to dissipate the heat) and even today, some transformers (well they're big inductors actually) are oil filled - these are used for testing radio transmitters. (a.k.a. a dummy load in place of the transmitting aerial).

But the transformer in that Arcam will most certainly not be filled with oil, and will work in any orientation (sorry did I already say that?).

A transformer (in the most simple form) consists of a copper wire wound around steel formers (and usually) soaked / coated in varnish, to keep mechanical noise down. A toroidal transformer is of similar construction, but is wound around a ring of ferrite / iron and is usually not soaked in varnish.

Tony.

 

[Anonymous]

I meant the transformer is a pretty heavy component. Interesting what you said though.

 

[Tony_R]

Octopo:I meant the transformer is a pretty heavy component. Interesting what you said though.

Oh I see lol! No that's ok too - it will be securely bolted to the chassis.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the advice - I will give it a go.

Cheers