Heat loss as pointed out earlier is worth thinking about. (1) The resistors are designed to cool themselves, so mill the "heatsink fins" off. (2) If th= e block could be milled for a slot you could get more contact between the resistor and the block. (3) It almost looks like you could bolt another two resistors on; even if smaller, since every bit helps. The other thought I had that wasn't covered already is that if you have a cheap plentiful supply of resistors, you could subject them to large overdrives and observe their failure modes. (May be some good YouTube material here :) Then do successively lower power tests and watch how the destruction time increases. Maybe you can then predict how long they would last at your desired power level. --=20 http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .