Order of components in enclosed rack

[dtom]

Greetings,
I am preparing to mount all my new A/V gear inside an enclosed rack (Omnimount RE27) and am concerned with the heat factor once everything is fired up.

I currently have a Denon 2312CI receiver, cable box, CD player, DVD player, XBOX, Ethernet swith (mounted), APC surge protector/conditioner (mounted), and a few IR switches.

The rack has two small fans mounted at the top that help exhaust the hot air out. I know that heat rises and my biggest heat producer with be the receiver.

Should the receiver go to the very top (closest to the fans), or will the rising heat from other components affect it? Or perhaps I should place the receiver toward the bottom of the rack (or will it trap the heat in?) The receiver is the biggest investment and I would like to keep it working for years to come.

Any advise and suggestions would be welcome.

 

[adk highlander]

Here is a link to a great Middle Atlantic document on thermal management in racks. http://www.middleatlantic.com/pdf/ThermalManagement.pdf

This goes over all the different rack configurations and how to cool them. Basically you want to create a chimney effect and pull cooler air from the bottom and vent hot air out the top.

 

[itschris]

Right Click, SAVE AS...

That's a great article.

 

[ahblaza]

Greetings,
I am preparing to mount all my new A/V gear inside an enclosed rack (Omnimount RE27) and am concerned with the heat factor once everything is fired up.

I currently have a Denon 2312CI receiver, cable box, CD player, DVD player, XBOX, Ethernet swith (mounted), APC surge protector/conditioner (mounted), and a few IR switches.

The rack has two small fans mounted at the top that help exhaust the hot air out. I know that heat rises and my biggest heat producer with be the receiver.

Should the receiver go to the very top (closest to the fans), or will the rising heat from other components affect it? Or perhaps I should place the receiver toward the bottom of the rack (or will it trap the heat in?) The receiver is the biggest investment and I would like to keep it working for years to come.

Any advise and suggestions would be welcome.

It seems your biggest concern is your Denon receiver, if you have about 3-4" from top of receiver I would use this, super quiet and keeps my furnace Onkyo 809 cool to the touch in my rack.
Newegg.com - COOLER MASTER Megaflow 200 R4-LUS-07AB-GP 200mm Blue LED Case Fan
I don't see too much heat be generated by your other components to be concerned about.
This is the power supply I use with the 200mm fan
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000MGG6SC/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i00
Hope this helps.
Cheers Jeff

 

[dtom]

Thank you for the reading and the fan suggestions. It appears I should just mount the receiver at the top with at least 4-5 inches of space to the ceiling and everything else underneath it.

Prior to reading the article I had considered removing the side panels or keeping the rear door partially open to improve circulation, but it appears that would actually have the oppositve effect. I think I would be better off keeping everything sealed up so that forced convection with the top fan would keep it cool inside.

Thanks again!

 

[adk highlander]

Post some pics as you are putting everything together.

Everyone here likes pictures of a nice rack.

 

[jostenmeat]

Thank you for the reading and the fan suggestions. It appears I should just mount the receiver at the top with at least 4-5 inches of space to the ceiling and everything else underneath it.

Prior to reading the article I had considered removing the side panels or keeping the rear door partially open to improve circulation, but it appears that would actually have the oppositve effect. I think I would be better off keeping everything sealed up so that forced convection with the top fan would keep it cool inside.

Thanks again!

I would not draw your final conclusions yet without further research. Unfortunately, I can't personally help you much as I don't understand this stuff so well, and I definitely don't have an inkling behind the design of your rack.

The first I read about MA heat mgmt was from Midnight Sensi here. BMXTRIX might have a helpful hint or two.

My instinct is to put the receiver at the very bottom where air is coolest.

A fear I have is, well, what is it you mean by "sealed up". Truly sealed, or are there cracks, or are there filtered vents, or what . . .

Please know that +90% of MA heat mgmt literature is for professional equipment, you know the ugly?, loud?, bright? stuff that has rack mountable ears, with fans pulling air from the FRONT, and other fans exhausting to the REAR. Not like a receiver that just has an open top (though I'm sure it has an internal fan, perhaps triggered at certain temp).

If you just have the fan pulling air up top, without understand everything else going on, you might have be creating eddies (eddy's?) of sorts, where you have pockets of dead-still super-hot air in your "sealed" rack.

Until you find your solution, well if it was me and until I did find mine, I'd open it all up, with the receiver at the bottom.

Check the heat of your cable box, some of the older ones from the less desirable providers used to get hot as hell. (Basically no energy consumption difference between on and off!)

 

[ahblaza]

The heat from even the newer cable boxes with double the data storage is rediculous especially when powered up, I can hear the DVR running, it's twice as small as my original but gets just as hot., the original had case burns on the top metal portion. Thanks for addressing this.

 

[Tin Ear]

My U-Verse box from ATT is brand new and gets SMOKIN HOT. It has it's own little space off to the side because of that ... and the fact it is an oddball size and looks like ish.

I run a rack mount fan just above both my receiver and my amp ... both Middle Atlantic products that draw air from the back and push it out the front. A set up like this, if you have the room, really allows you to position the components where they function and look best.

 

[KEW]

Some of these cable boxes are small enough to tuck discretely out of the way. If you can work this for your system, you might want to leave the cable box out of the enclosure.