10 replies to this topic

[joeyfinneran]

Is there anything out there that can direct the hot air from goin to the gear stick when its on car ?
I know the centre concole redirects it but i hate the look of them no offence to people who like them :L

[Jordie]

youd have to make something. you can feel the warm air come out of a gap underneath. if you could get this to feed into a tube similar to the windscreen vents you could redirect the air to a proper vent as per a modern car.

[joeyfinneran]

I was wondering is there anything on the market to do so ? Such as abs fiberglass or somthing

[Jordie]

never seen anything. i plan to make a centre console fot mine with proper vents and cup holders but havent go around to it yet.

[maccers]

Oddly I just fitted a CB radio and as I already have a stereo under the dash rail on passengers side, and a whole row of switches on the driver side, I was considering getting a centre console just for this. I am not too keen on them, but not too fussed either. I ended up moutning the cb radio to the underside of the hater case, by securing the hanging bracket that the cb fits onto, to two self tapping screws that hold something in the heater case, just used slightly long screws.

And my point here, where the cb radio is, naturally deflects the hot air either side of the centre line! So perhaps something screwed there could deflect the heat other than right at the gear stick.

10-4

[jakejakejake1]

I have duct tape over the main centre heater slot on my car, as when its on 'screen' loads of air still comes out the bottom and the tape helps, and when I have it on 'car' it goes to the footwells, which im happy with haha

[tiger99]

Be very careful with your CB radio. Every 7 degree C (sometimes less, never more) increase in temperature halves the life of semiconductors, and some other components will fail very quickly above 70 deg C, and that is the temperature inside the radio, which due to its own self heating when on will be above the external temperature.

In general, you should never put any electronic items anywhere near the outlet from a heater, if you do not want them to fail very quickly. Some are designed for higher ambient temperature, but will still have a depressingly short life in situations like that.

[maccers]

Yeah, I did have some concerns more about possible coolant leak from the matrix more than anything, but yep, its a temp location until I decide to keep it in the car at all, ie how useful it will be to me.

[Doz1971]

. Every 7 degree C (sometimes less, never more)

I'd like to know where you got this figure from?

[tiger99]

The arrhenius equation, and various reliability handbooks including MIL-HDBK-217F (available on-line) and teh new BS/SO standard (can't remember the number right now, but it contains a lot of improvements to the calculation process compared to the MIK HDBK) plus 39 years of professional experience designing high reliability equipment. If applying the arrhenius equation, you need to know the "activation energy" of the failure mode, which controls the 7 degree figure typical of most semiconductors. If you have any questions, I am quite happy to discuss it further.

[Doz1971]

With you now .... what I hadn't given any thought of is the life expectancy of a semi-conductor at or near to 0 deg K !
I would still expect the semi-conductors in his CB to out-live the floor pan in his Mini, notwithstanding other failure modes. Not so the poor electrolytics, however.