Overheat reboots

Tom Morris

Tom Morris

Power User
While playing a gig outside today at a south florida Harley dealer, my AXF III rebooted its self 6 times. It was really hot to say the least and unfortunately I had no place to get the rack out of direct sunlight after 2pm. We set up around 10:30 and started playing around noon. 12-4 gig. Around 3pm as we were getting into our heavy set and direct sun on the rack the AFX just reboots. Came back up fine, normal boot speed but it was pretty hot, sun was not directly hitting the unit just the rack. I have a Gator grayish colored rotomold rack its in the top with two empty spaces below then my Matrix amp. Local long time friends were getting married and wanted to do it at Harley otherwise we wouldn't have been there in the first place. I thought I had all my basses covered with an extra 10x10 tent, mobile AC unit extra fans. In the event this ever goes down again I will be sure to have an extra fan and umbrella for the rack. Anyone else ran into this reboot issue? I haven't set it up and played it since yet so I'm hoping this doesn't continue.
 
I'm not sure you should be surprised here. But it was certainly an interesting gig. I've played the Axe II in VERY hot situations, and never had a problem, but I kept it out of direct sun, and made sure that there was sufficient ventilation in the rack.

Suggestion: Since heat rises, might put the Matrix over the Axe III...I might suspect that it gets hotter than the Axe III and contribute. However, it's nice that FAS puts that many unit-saving features into this product.

Yes, fans and umbrella's are a good idea in summer...in Florida.
 
Interesting as i ran into the same problem yesterday with one of my axe fxs II. I was doing soundcheck at 3pm on a pretty hot stage. My setup is made of 2 axe fx II in a 4u rack. The axe on top started doing strange stuff , like freezing and rebooting. I figured out that the rack was pretty hot and I just took everything out of the rack so that it could get better ventilation. After that no more problem and my gig at 5pm went on perfectly even with the sun shinning directly on the axe fxs. But I admit it was verry scary...
 
Not really a suggestion, but wondering, if creating another set of presets, a "low-cpu" versions of main presets, would help the issue. For some it might not be an option, but depending on the songs, in extreme situations live you could get away with a quite simple tones.
 
I’ve had a couple of direct sun events and noticed the rack to was so hot you couldn’t touch it. Nothing had cut off, maybe because my Axe FX is not in the top spaces of the rack. I got out a large white beach towel and wrapped it over the rack, leaving it hanging open for shade/ventilation at the rear, and it was surprising how much it cooled down with just the ambient breeze to assist. Nothing ever shut down. Not the coolest looking thing (no pun intended) but it worked.
 
Radiant barrier fabric - reflects 90% or more of radiant heat, and the ones made for curtains have a white layer, which reflects light energy. http://www.radiantbarrier.com/radiant-curtains.htm

I'm very tempted to have some handy to drape over my rack in brutal direct-sun conditions. We invest so much in gear only to end up in no-choice situations where our racks bake in the sun. Happened to me at a festival yesterday.
 
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Rick said:
I’ve had a couple of direct sun events and noticed the rack to was so hot you couldn’t touch it. Nothing had cut off, maybe because my Axe FX is not in the top spaces of the rack. I got out a large white beach towel and wrapped it over the rack, leaving it hanging open for shade/ventilation at the rear, and it was surprising how much it cooled down with just the ambient breeze to assist. Nothing ever shut down. Not the coolest looking thing (no pun intended) but it worked.
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Glad that worked for you. Now that I remember it started the set before the last one and on the break I did drape a white t-shirt over the rack. It was just stupid hot in a parking lot.
 
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