how hot can a transistor get

in my experience transistors can work quite hapily but be to hot to touch for any lenght of time, however i seem to have more sensitive fingers than most people, also if it leaves a mark on your finger or even takes skin off then i would say its too hot, especialy if it has any heatsink. this ocurs much above 60'c i think wich means the silicon is probably a lot more, but typicaly silicon devices are speced up to over 100'c, but reliability goes down with increasing temp.

Colin =^.^=

It is not uncommon for say automotive spec devices to operate between -40 to

125degC (- 105 + 20degC Delta for board temp) and junction temperatures of upto 150degC. Check the datasheet for that device, it should have the operating temperature range. If the pervoius device did not get hot then the char. of that transistor must differer to the original and how much more "heat" it can withstand will again be in the datasheet.

Wayne

no put a heat shink on it. it depends also on how fast it gets ...

j van c wrote: