Taito F3 fan: what exactly does it cool??

[keropi]

Hiya!

I have some F3 motherboards in my collection now and as you can guess their fans are quite annoying. They are 20x20x10mm ones AFAIR and their airflow is laughable which brings the question: what's the point of their existence? Is there any IC on the board heating up or they just installed them so there is a minimal airflow present just in case the game overheats? Even it's placement and airway doesn't make much sense to me when you take into account the low cfm the fan has:



Or maybe it's the case the fans are now so old they don't work at full speed or something?
I kinda want to disconnect the fan and maybe install some heatsinks on the main ICs for the F3 mobo I plan to use regularly but I would appreciate some feedback as well...
thanks!

[Pete]

Playing it safe in case it gets installed in a tight area inside a cab ? or maybe some games need it more than others.

[leonardoliveira]

If the board is enclosed on a bubble of plastic (like CPS2) it's meant to suck away the warm air away from the board, avoiding a build up of warm air.

For example. running the CPS2 without it's casing fully eliminates the need of having the fan.

[keropi]

well the mobo is not inside a capsule at all, the cart sits 10-11mm on top of it and the front and back are completely free ... It's like this :



well maybe they just installed it as a safety measure after all, it can only do good and no harm after all

[leonardoliveira]

The CPS2 having a plastic case is mostly due to the need of protecting the custom chips against short circuit (erasure of security keys).

[nem]

I've removed all of mine

The fan looks completely useless.

[keropi]

I've removed all of mine

The fan looks completely useless.

very good to know, thanks! I'll do the same and maybe I will stick some really low profile heatsinks on any IC/cpu that gets warm though I doubt it is needed

[leonardoliveira]

Don't run them in the plastic case without the fan. They will overheat and the boards will warp. The fans cost money, CAPCOM would not put fans in them if they weren't needed.

[keropi]

^ I think we are still talking about the F3 (not running the enclosed CPS2 without a fan) ?
at any rate I am talking about F3

[nem]

Yeah, the CPS2 gets really hot if run without a fan.

On the F3 I haven't noticed any issues or components that are hot to touch.