Do I have to turn my Kemper off?

    Simple question. I have had it on for like 4 days now. Seems to like staying on. :) It is barely warm to the touch on the sides so I assume this wont overheat or wear out..

    Good question for support, on one side the lifecycle of electronic components is estimated in hours of use (ex: a plasma TV have a 20.000h lifetime estimated) OTOH the most stressing part of the usage is the on/off cycle....
    Prolly very difficult to guess

    "Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music" Serghei Rachmaninoff


    I've asked this same question for 20 years to different manufacturers, never really got a clear and confident answer.. :) So for me with all electronics leave them on as long as possible, but turn them off if not going to use it for many hours, like overnight, just don't turn them off/on every time I go for a coffee break.. :)

    Sounds wise :)


    As I see it, the point with electr(on)ic circuits is the thermal stress due to rapid temperature changes (for example switching on/off).
    Since the KPA has got no moving parts (disks) which would benefit from a mechanical rest now and then, the best strategy IMO would be to keep its temperature in as possible a tight range: so switching it off in a hot environment if not in use, or keeping it on for a night in a cold room.


    Generally speaking, another good option for components undergoing strong temperature variations is to allow for mild thermal changes. When switching a car off after a fast run, for example, better to keep it in a warm room rather than exposing it to a -20° C.
    This is the same reason why it's advised to keep the engine running for a while after an intense use of the car before switching it off: so that the oil can go on distributing the residual heat among colder and hotter parts of the engine.


    The inner structure of certain materials (conductors for example, or metal in general) definitively changes with heat/cold cycles: the more numerous, the faster and the more extreme, the worse for their lifetime.

    Quote from Radley

    On the other hand - the system (in RAM memory) tends to get more and more corrupted the longer you go with out a restart...

    This is something I've noticed on my PC with XP SP 3. Wonder whether it is inherent to the nature of the RAM, or could depend on the way RAM blocks are loaded/unloaded, hence on the OS.


    OTOH, we're talking about cooling downs and warming ups related to mains switch on-off, but there's no need to cut the mains for rebooting a unit: if you just press Restart (or the equivalent) on a computer there's no meaningful temperature variation, circuits go on being power-supplied.


    BTW, the only issues I've had with keeping my PCs always running have been related to the hard disks :)

    Quote from viabcroce

    This is something I've noticed on my PC with XP SP 3. Wonder whether it is inherent to the nature of the RAM, or could depend on the way RAM blocks are loaded/unloaded, hence on the OS.


    OTOH, we're talking about cooling downs and warming ups related to mains switch on-off, but there's no need to cut the mains for rebooting a unit: if you just press Restart (or the equivalent) on a computer there's no meaningful temperature variation, circuits go on being power-supplied.


    BTW, the only issues I've had with keeping my PCs always running have been related to the hard disks :)



    The problem you had or having is probably more due to fragmentation than corruption.... The Kemper OS and RAM access is surely a lot simpler than the one of a Windows operating system where a huge array of different file size need to be address in memory and at some need to start swapping out... I would not worry about the Kemper creating memory fragmentation since it is loading up always the same type of file...

    Are you using a power conditioner? LED's typically should last a ridiculous amount of time, normally 25 000 to 100 000 hours, so even if you left your Kemper on all day every day since you got it in Feb then it shouldn't have burnt out (there's only been 2568 hours since the beginning of Feb, you could in theory leave it on solid from a little over 2 years anywhere up to about 11.5 years before the LED burns out). More normally too with LED's they fail by slowly getting dimmer rather than just failing outright.


    So what's more likely is either there's a dodgy connection on the PCB, some other component in there doesn't last well, or it experienced a spike somehow which took it out. Either way though see if you can have it fixed, it shouldn't happen in this short of a time.

    The only items that wear appreciably in the KPA are the LEDS, LCD screen, and most critically....the capacitors.


    Capacitors do "wear out", especially if undersized or not properly specified for the application. I used to believe in "leaving it on" when it comes to electronics but lately I've had a rash of cap failures in various pieces of gear in my studio. After dis-assembly, I discovered each had caps that where bulged on top or blown out. This gear ran 6 years continuously. Had I powered it down, it may well have lasted longer.


    LEDs are typically rated with a "half-life" which is the time it will burn continuously before illuminating at 50% light output. Most are around 7 years but can be more or less depending on the applied voltage and LED quality. If one fails early on a unit with many identical LEDs, most likely its a premature LED failure or bad solder joint. It happens.


    LCD screens last a long time but can fail in extreme temperatures. I'm not sure what type of screen the KPA has. It looks like an LCD to me but I haven't looked closely.


    I turn mine off now days.


    bd