Can daytime heat damage amp electronics?

[Bob Lee (QSC)]

I don't think I've ever seen such damage to electronics, but I have seen plastic warpage and fading, adhesives softening, etc., from high ambient heat.

 

[rcarraher]

??
I have been dabbling in vintage stereo repair for the last couple of years and I would be really shocked if solder joints would be affected by the ambient tempature of a closed up cars interior,I have my soldering iron temp set at 630 degrees.
I cant see how car stereo equipment is any different than non auto equipment for dealing with heat.
I would not hesitate to leave my rig in a car specially in the shade.
Think about all of the less durable items in your car that fare just fine year after year.
just my .02

Like I said, the cars temp won't reflow the solder, but everyone uses wave soldering now a days and it is very rarely as good as you or me with an iron, so the temp in a car will expose any suspect solder joint faster tha operating temperatures. probably 90 % of the things that come back on warranty for rework are cold/bad/incomplete solder joints.

 

[rcarraher]

Nobody mentioned the glues/adhesives that are used. I would think those might be able to soften up in the heat and perhaps cause some damage, couldn't they?

Yup, most definitely. Not to mention the expansion of the wood case joints etc...

 

[RTL]

I'm with the "Don't worry about it" group. I live in a town where temperatures are well over 100F nearly every day during the summer, so I have had some fair experience when it comes to this kind of thing..

Other than keeping things like speaker cones out of direct sunlight, there's not a whole lot to worry about (IME). As for amps, solder connections, etc.... Well, I've never had a problem. My Ashdown ABM 500 EvoII rackmount practically lived in my car for over 4 months (April-Sept) , and it never gave me a single problem. The SKB rack it was in suffered some minor warpage, though..

Another example:

Last summer, I had to play an outdoor gig at the ROT Rally (HUGE biker event in Austin).. They blocked off a side street and put a stage out there - with ZERO coverage. No tent, no tarp, nothing. Just a bare stage sitting under direct sunlight in the middle of the afternoon, with a temperature hovering somewhere around 104 with over 80% humidity. My DB750 - running at 4 Ohms, no PA support, volume and gain at noon, mounted in a black SKB rack which, due to all that sun, had become too hot to pick up before I even plugged the amp in - ran flawlessly for the entire set, which was close to 2 hours. No problems to speak of before or since