Mounting Voltage Regulator

[Low Tailwheel rider]

B&C LR3C-14 to pilot side of firewall. 1/4" UHMW spacer between regulator and firewall metal. Does the regulator rely on the firewall as some sort of heat sink, am I defeating that by having the UHMW spacer between the two surfaces? Have a call in to B&C for their thoughts.

 

[rapid_ascent]

The voltage regulator is a linear regulator which means it does create heat as part of the regulation process. The big transistor with the plastic cover is probably the pass transistor and it is using the metal box as a heatsink. So to answer your question, you are defeating the heatsinking capability to some extent. It's hard to tell how much though.

 

[lr172]

if the instructions do not advice you to esecure it to a cool metal surface, it is unlikely that heat sink beyond air moving about the case is required. if they needed further heat sinking, they would provide better guidance on how to do it properly.

the plastic is likely helpfull here as the FW is hot and would otherwise transfer that heat to the regulator. opposite of what you want.

 

[Freemasm]

Guessing it's a rather old one. The current ones have legs that create a little bit of stand-off.

 

[Carl Froehlich]

Why mount it on the firewall? Heat and semiconductors do not mix.

Carl