A question about amp construction

[Sodium Duck]

I was playing around with my spare stereo parts, and I decided to see what the inside of my mono amp looked like. I was suprised to see that the cover of it was bassically a half inch of aluminum - which accounts for its very heavy weight. Then there is just a dinky little circuit board.

Does this help it dissipate heat? Protection? Minimize vibrations? Or can I safely take out the guts and mount them in something else?

Oh, and are there components in there that can still discharge electricity? I was very careful not to touch anything when I opened it up.

[talnlnky]

the aluminum chunk is a heatsink... yeah... look to find any black square things with three metal pins coming out of them that connect to the board. If they are mounted on the sides of the board (and often in pairs) then you are probably looking at the transistors.

overall... a mono amp will be around 70-85% efficient... so, If your amp is 1000w. it takes around 1300watts to actually convert that full 1000watts. Leaves you with 300watts of heat to dissipate.

So... keep that chunk of metal on... its there for physical protection (from objects damaging, or shorting out), and for thermal protection.