FLIR baseline on Development Board

[voidstar]

So, for "DAY 1" (for me) I wanted to get a "FLIR baseline" imaging of the Development Board.

Remember FLIR isn't showing absolute HOT vs COLD - it is showing RELATIVE temperatures. So the bright orange spots aren't necessarily hot-hot-hot, but they are warming relative to the blue/dark areas. And don't take the displayed degCelsius as gospel - it's an estimate of where the center circle of the FLIR is pointing at, but it's not calibrated (though it is roughly about room temperature as expected).

After some initial does-it-work-at-all checkout, then I let the system sit for about an hour while OFF to cool back down.

Then I got FLIR images after 1minute and 2minute of power up, while IDLE (just sitting at the BASIC startup prompt). I put my hand in the frame just to have a basis for comparison. No surprises there.

Then I ran the SONIC demo - something that exercises animation and audio. There is slight "orange" on the keyboard since that's where I was typing to do the load. The VERA and other components "light up" as expected - and of particular interest, the "2nd from the end" RAM chip warms up a bit too.

[spargue]

This is really great work. Definitely shows the Yamaha could benefit from a heatsink to help extend its life.

[Wavicle]

This is fascinating! Do you have high res versions of these images? I'm particularly curious about where the hot spots on VERA are.

[voidstar]

It's an older C2 model - 5+yrs now. 320x240 is all it can muster.

[GTR3QQ]

That SD card is baking! Surprised I am.
According to to the data sheet, at static, it will leak 100mA of current result in 600mW of static heat out put.
NMOS is very leaky. And hot.

Most arcades, dare I say ALL of the arcade back then didn't use heatsink on it,and they were doing just fine.
At least before the game got retired for people getting tired of it.
That's years of continues use.

So it should be up for debate how much difference can a heatsink bring, chilling a die that's encased 2mm down in plastic.
Can it really bring the die temp down a Celsius degree?
To me it feels like it just chilling the package, and making you feel better.

If you're looking into improving heat dissipation, solder the chip on board and stick a aluminum heatsink should give it all the possible passive cooling.

I'd wonder if FPGA YM2151 outputs similar heat, if so…probably a more tolerant Timming is needed.

[spargue]

It's an older C2 model - 5+yrs now. 320x240 is all it can muster.

Move the camera closer to the board.

[voidstar]

There may be "false-positives" due to reflections - for instance the metal casing around the keyboard/mouse are also a large reflective surface. At certain angles, I noticed the FLIR was "seeing itself" (or some other object in the reflection - such as my own body, which ends up appearing "hot").

The SD showed "hot" only in one image there - I think because it caught a reflection at that angle.

I tried closer shots - and I ended up just covering the SD metal housing with an index card for now.

I would expect some heat thru the PS/2 connectors - power flowing for those LED on those accessories. But notice in the last image 199, it ends up showing as "dark" near the PS/2 ports - so not sure what happened there.


This FLIR superimposes two images together - at closer ranges, I'm thinking the alignment of the two isn't as accurate. So the static images are one datapoint, but it makes a little more sense to see the results as the camera is being moved/shifted slightly (in terms of seeing which bright spots stay, and which ones are "iffy").

It doesn't record video, but maybe I can somehow attach an action-cam to it, hmmm.

Anyhow, around the VERA, there is definitely "warmth" near that "orange component" (at least it's orange on mine), then two smaller components at the top.

EDIT: And haven't gotten a look at whatever is below the VERA itself.

[GTR3QQ]

Oh, false reads, that make sense.

The hot spots on VERA is
U10 (LDO I think)
D4,D3 (Zener diode?, can be IR from chip on the bottom main board baked it)
U11 (7314 PSU chip)

Main board

? that THT transistor or it's the metallic fastener reflecting.

[Wavicle]

The "orange thing" is the audio mute relay. It produces the "click" sound when you reset the computer. It actually looks like maybe the "hot spot" is the standoff for VERA connected to the PCB, not the relay. Maybe it is reflecting something.

U10 is the 3.3V linear regulator. 1/3 of all power drawn from the 5V rail is dumped as heat within that part. This is pretty much expected.

U11 is the video amplifier for composite and s-video. That one surprises me a little bit. Not sure what's going on there.

[voidstar]

one thing i've noticed on my board: if i press the POWER button, I hear one click during shutoff . But if I type POWEROFF to power down from BASIC, it seems I hear a series of clicks (2, maybe 3). Probably nothing, but still just something I noticed.