We got our USBBlox units and I’ve started testing them. I’ve noticed it is running relatively hot for a gigabit USB Ethernet even at room temperature (it is too hot to hold my finger on it after a while). Is some additional cooling recommended?
NB: the forum requires a tag for this post, but there is no usbblox tag.
Hmm, we didn’t notice excess heat in our tests (at least, not enough to hurt a finger). Do they all act like this? And which part is hot?
Both units we got behave the same. It seems to me the heat source is on the bottom side, somewhere in the middle.
Here are some photos (check timestamps; the heating up is quite fast): https://photos.app.goo.gl/YuNd59zSRhXnmxCd9 .
This seems to be a steady state (75 °C):
Hm, yeah that’s a bit hotter than what I recall seeing.
Unfortunately I’m out of the lab for a few weeks, so I’ll have to park replicating this in the mean time. I would expect that we may either improve the heatsink on the top, or possible have it extend to the bottom.
The chip is rated to 85C, so 75C is pretty high.
In any case, I think we’ll need to circle back to this in around 1 month.
It’s okay to wait for us, we don’t need to integrate it anytime soon. As I said, it seemed to me the hottest place is on the bottom part (the one without connectors), where I guess is the power stage.
