Advice on keep equipment cool

[Donnilad]

Hello everyone,

I am in the envious process of redecoratoring my Living room/Dining room. I have built a false chimney and plan to install my new 40" LCD on a tilt and turn bracket inside. I also plan(ned) to build a set of two door cupboards either side of the chimney to store my sky/surround sound amp/xbox etc in the left had cupboard. I was blissfully happy with my progress until I have spent time looking over this forum and I am now in a state of confusion as to how to continue. My concern is over the amount of heat that may be generated in the cupboard with the equipment. Just for the record the spec of the cupboard was going to be 900mm in length and 750mm high and about 450mm deep.

I have seen installations with built in fans etc.. but the misses just wants me to get this done!!

Any advice on how to progress would be helpful please.

I have enclosed a few pics of the work so far..

[enablerbro1]

When I build my cabinet I intend using this sort of stuff for the doors (built into a frame obviously to form the door). My shelving will be generously spaced and will not be as deep as the cabinet itself, allowing room for cabling and airflow to the rear. I'm not sold on the idea of how much air an 80mm fan will shift in such relatively large cabinets and when you add in the noise generated from such small fans to do the work I certainly wouldn't go that route. If you can fit in some 120mm fans and spin them on lower revs you'd tackle the noise but the trade off is the space they're taking up.

My advice, don't cram your equipment in and allow the equipments own fans to do the job of keeping them cool.

[Donnilad]

Thanks for that, It has but me at ease a little, now I have no excuse but to plod on!! However just one more point, should one drill holes in the shelves for improved air flow etc or am I just 'over egging the pudding' slightly. Thanks again.

[enablerbro1]

Originally Posted by Donnilad

Thanks for that, It has but me at ease a little, now I have no excuse but to plod on!! However just one more point, should one drill holes in the shelves for improved air flow etc or am I just 'over egging the pudding' slightly. Thanks again.

I plan to allow, for example, a height of 250mm to shelve my xbox 360 which will allow me to put in some sort or "rails" to lift the 360 off the shelf and effectively suspend the 360 in the middle of the space with air all round, drilling holes in the shelf will do a similar thing. Is it overkill? Probably but it can't hurt.

[Andy104]

You could try putting in a air vent, like the shower ones from screwfix, and running the ducting under the floorboards to another place in the room.

hmm i have the same problem, does anyone know where i can get my hands on some cheap 120mm fans that i can run from a normal 3 pin plug. Can you make or get these?

[dodfaefife]

Hi there. Here's my effort...

basically an Ikea wardrobe unit with three 120mm fans fitted. Powered from a cheap external hard-drive caddy and speed controlled via a fan controller from maplin/PCWorld. Total cost about £30. Seems to do the trick in keeping the air moving and cooling the toasty bits (Sky HD, XBox360, PS3 and, of course, an Onkyo875. With the door closed I cannot hear them and can barely hear the PS3 or 360

[velvitjester]

Originally Posted by Donnilad

Hello everyone,

I am in the envious process of redecoratoring my Living room/Dining room. I have built a false chimney and plan to install my new 40" LCD on a tilt and turn bracket inside. I also plan(ned) to build a set of two door cupboards either side of the chimney to store my sky/surround sound amp/xbox etc in the left had cupboard. I was blissfully happy with my progress until I have spent time looking over this forum and I am now in a state of confusion as to how to continue. My concern is over the amount of heat that may be generated in the cupboard with the equipment. Just for the record the spec of the cupboard was going to be 900mm in length and 750mm high and about 450mm deep.

I have seen installations with built in fans etc.. but the misses just wants me to get this done!!

Any advice on how to progress would be helpful please.

I have enclosed a few pics of the work so far..

fit a vent in the wall,will bring cold air from outside into the cupboard

[Donnilad]

Thanks for the advice so far... I must admit it was whilst being nosey and looking at other forum members great DIY achievements that I stumbled across Dodfaefife's masterpiece of a build and noticed those little fans. This is what really sparked my concern about overheating, and thought I better seek advice, so Dodfaefife, it is all your fault!!! (joke)


Anyway looking at the advice I have received so far I think that I may just be slightly over concerned about this issue, HOWEVER I am willing to be told otherwise. It's just that I didn’t really find much on the forum any posts about amps/sky/xboxes melting inside someones painstaking constructed DIY effort and compared to Dodfaefife's equipment that he has installed, I would guess that fans are essential as opposed to an optional extra for him, whereas my measly amp/sky/xbox combo probably could be cooled with sufficient air circulation from a vented front cupboard door and shelves allowing room at there back and a vent on top at the back of the cupboard. If some disagrees please feel free to but me right, afterall I am a newbie to all this... Ta

[Andy104]

how have you set the fans up? what powers them and the thing on the bottom what is it?

Thanks

[dodfaefife]

[QUOTE so Dodfaefife, it is all your fault!!! (joke)[/QUOTE]

Ha. I in turn have to blame quite a few others on these forums for encouraging me too.

To be honest I might have done without the fans but the Onkyo does run very hot as does the Sky HD box and the PS3 or 360 and it was probable that any three of these would be one at the same time, most of the time. And it gave me something new to tinker with.

Andy, I've replied to your PM. Hope it helps.

[kumack]

Im in the same position as this in both my installs Im doing one in the bedroom, must like Daf's all the gear is going in a wardrobe unit and yesterday watching a movie through the ps3, I opened the door to find the ps3's fans practically roaring at me.

In the living room I doing something similar to you with a hidden cupboard beside the chimney breast as I only have one alcove. My depths are very similar to yours so Im intrigued as to what you'll do keep the thread up to date so I can steal your plan !

[velvitjester]

2 of these,one on the outside and inside will bring alot of air through.
http://www.screwfix.com/prods/15823/...nt-229-x-152mm

would take about an hour to fit and imo be alot better than bodging together some fans,that will only blow warm air around the place.

You could even only do one on the outside and run ducting like this http://www.screwfix.com/prods/17489/...ting-Kit-125mm right up to the equipment.

[enablerbro1]

Originally Posted by velvitjester

would take about an hour to fit and imo be alot better than bodging together some fans,that will only blow warm air around the place.

I'd assume the fans are operating similar to those in a PC case, positioned over holes in the cabinet, blowing air in and extracting air out. There'd not be much point in just attaching fans to a solid surface within the cabinet and set to blow.

[dodfaefife]

Exactly right. The lower fan brings in cooler air from outside, cooling the air rising from the games consoles bellow and providing cooler air underneath the Onk. The second fan pulls in cooler air over the Onk (there's also a hole for the Onk's right side vent) and the third pushes hot air out the back from above and behind the Onk's hot spots. In addition, there's passive venting at the very bottom (under the games console shelf) and at the very top of the cabinet. Readings taken before and after the fan installation show they're doing there job but, of course, I can't say if any of my kit would have failed without the additional cooling – hopefully not.

External venting was not an option as the position of the cabinet left no access to external walls except by passing through a boxed-in steel column then a steel framed glass wall. Or having ugly vents on the viewable side.

[Donnilad]

Originally Posted by kumack

. My depths are very similar to yours so Im intrigued as to what you'll do keep the thread up to date so I can steal your plan !

I will definately keep you up dated kumack, I may even visually bore members with a sort of pictorial update showing you the final bodge/masterpiece. You have been warned.

On the issue of external venting, I can see some good ideas, and I am now somewhat gutted as you can see from the attached photos. I used to have two vents in the walls either side of the bay window (the right hand wall forming part of the alcove) and were made before I moved into my property, I think they were put there to negate condensation or something like that. However having recently had the living room plastered I asked the plasterer to block up one of the holes... guess which one..

gutted.. doh

PS the third pic is not related to anything other then I spent ages today pulling up floor boards and installing a couple of rads.. but here you are anyway.