Cabinet Cooling

[MACCA350]

What do you think of using something like this:

240VAC Cross Flow Fan 198mm

Air volume: 1400 LPM
Bearing system: Ball & Sleeve bearing
Noise: 36dB(A)
Voltage: 240VAC
Input: 12 watts
Size: 198x48x50mm
Wheel: Aluminium
Frame: SPCC & SECC
Speed: 2550 rpm
Current: 70mA
Fly lead connection

I'm thinking of mounting it at the top back corner of my cabinet to draw the air out the top at the back.

cheers

 

[emorphien]

Thermaltake fans wouldn't be my first choice. I'd look at quiet 120mm DC fans. From what i've seen it seems like DC fans have smaller motors than the AC fans so I imagine they'd be able to move more air in the same size fan at the same RPMs. I'm not sure about that though, the AC fans may have been higher speed.

In any case, in PC land Panaflo and Papst are popular for quiet fans, but you can go to any good PC parts website and find the noise specs on the fans you're interested in.

 

[grommit]

This 120mm AC fan is what I use

I got a PQfan from a referral in a different thread on audioholics last fall. It's from hometheatercooling.com. It runs on AC and is 120mm. It also came with a long cord. super quiet.

G

 

[darien87]

So, I nded up buying a couple of 3" fans from Radio Suck.

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2103787&cp

I cut holes for them in the back of my cabinet and put one near the bottom, pulling cool air in, and one near the top, pushing hot air out. I just spliced them to power cords also bought at Radio Suck, and plugged them into the back of my 661.

Well, they worked just fine, but they were WAY too damn loud!!! I tried buying a couple of 3W rheostat's to slow the fans down, but the fans just laughed at that. They didn't slow down at all. I called a local electrical supply store and they had fan controllers that would work. So I bought 2 of those on Saturday and wired them up and they worked great. I was able to slow the fans down a little so that you can barely hear them. They seem to still be flowing a good amount of air though.

My Acurus amp should be here tomorrow. Once I get everything hooked up, I'll take pics so you guys can see how it turned out. Hopefully those 2 fans will be enough.

 

[darien87]

Here are the fans from the outside of the cabinet wall. The upper one pulls air out and the lower one pulls air in.

Here are the fans from inside the cabinet.

The amp gets here tomorrow. We'll see how the fans work with the PS 3, receiver and amp all putting out heat. On Saturday I called around some home theater stores to see if they sold fans. Most of them did, but they didn't keep anything in stock, you had to order it. One place had some but they were like $300!!! The guy tried to sell me on how they didn't resonate and yada yada yada. Gimme a break. I probably spent a total of $50 on everything I bought.

 

[jake5717]

You could have wired them in Series and cut the speed in half.

 

[darien87]

You could have wired them in Series and cut the speed in half.

Now you tell me.

 

[FguerraG]

you need minimum 8mm fans to have tolerable noise level even at half speed these suckers hum , that's why almost everyone recommends 12mm

now 12mm looks excessive that's why you should try 8's I just received a couple of 80mm Zalman ZM-F1 Quiet Mode Fans - ZMF1

will be installing over the weekend I'll post my findings afterwards.

 

[FguerraG]

My mistake , I just realized 3" are 80mm (I live in Mexico )

you should try and connect them in series or get the Noiseless Connector RC56 from Zalman

 

[majorloser]

A little more money, but nice stuff:

http://www.cool-components.com/31.html?sm=16241

 

[darien87]

A little more money, but nice stuff:

http://www.cool-components.com/31.html?sm=16241

I came across that site when I was doing my research. As you said, nice stuff, but a tad pricey.

 

[j_garcia]

Those were the ones I was talking about before, just couldn't remember the site. Only know one person who has actually tried them and he was happy with it.

Maybe you can try both drawing air out?

 

[darien87]

Well, unfortunately the fans don't seem to be doing enough to help cool the cabinet. I guess turning them down to a point where they don't distract me, keeps them from moving enough air. Last night, the cable box fan went into "turbo" mode while watching a movie. And the PS 3 fan still goes into high gear.

I could probably move the cable box on top of my center speaker, but I don't think that would solve the problem with my PS 3. Guess I'll just have to keep the cabinet door open when I watch a movie. Sucks.

 

[emorphien]

You may need to look in to fans with better airflow and noise specs, as well as put some more thought in to where you are putting your fans in there so that you have good airflow where it's needed.

 

[jake5717]

Man that sucks and with the door open you prolly dont need the fans. The one I got is much louder then I would like but after a few min you forget about it all together and it moves a TON of air.

 

[MACCA350]

Air volume: 900 LPM
Bearing system: Ball & Sleeve bearing
Noise: 35dB(A)
Voltage: 12VDC
Input: 2.6 watts
Size: 245x48x50mm
Wheel: Aluminium
Frame: SPCC & SECC
Speed: 2800 rpm
Current: 220mA
Fly lead connection

I ended up picking up this 12v version of the fan, and it worked out amazingly well. The way it works is it picks up air and forces it out at a right angle compared to the inlet. It blows a lot of air, more than I needed so I used a 9volt power pack instead of a 12volt one which lowered the flow and lowered the noise(although it was quiet to begin with).

I used some stick on felt feet so I could place it on top of the receivers grill. Now it sucks the air out of the receiver and blows it out the back of the rack(the receiver is in the top of the cabinet and the back board is cut out from the receiver shelf to the top). Because the receiver is at the top the fan is right at the top of the cabinet so it creates a flow of air out the back of the cabinet and effectively draws cooler air from the other openings(door gaps, etc).

Normally it gets rather warm in the top of the cabinet and the receiver internals get quite hot, tonight I watched a couple of movies and checked the cabinet. Inside the cabinet seemed cooler then the room and the receiver felt as cool as if I hadn't even turned it on

What I need to do now is get a European IEC-C7 Power plug so I can use the switched outputs on the back of the receiver(for some stupid reason Denon didn't put an Australian standard socket on the back of the Australian model) I found out how hard it is to get one here today. I finally found a source, but will have to wait till Tuesday to pick it up. Then I'll have to cut it so I can fit an Australian socket on the other end.

For those who want to try this you can mount it on the inside back top corner of your cabinet and cut a small slit for the exhaust, this will suck the heat out at the top of the cabinet and blow it out the back.

Oh and I found out that this is normally used for a heater(Gas or something like that) so if you cant find it locally try a heating spare parts place. For those in Australia I bought it at Jaycar for AU$39.95 (BTW they have the 12v and 240v pictures mixed up, the 12v is the one pictured above)

cheers

 

[darien87]

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll keep that one in mind. Seems like a good alternative. My latest idea is, I bought a piece of perforated steel, (like used on Salamander's cabinets), I'm going to try replacing the back panel of my cabinet with this and see if that allows enough airflow to cool the cabinet. I can always attach my fans to the perforated panel if it still requires more cooling. If the perforated panel along with the fans STILL isn't enough, then I will just give up and keep the door open when I turn my stereo on.

 

[jake5717]

I see a lot of posts about using these 12v fans but how are you powering them? You mentioned a power pack is this a battery? Do you manually turn the fan on and off?

 

[MACCA350]

I see a lot of posts about using these 12v fans but how are you powering them? You mentioned a power pack is this a battery? Do you manually turn the fan on and off?

What I used is something like this power adapter

I had some old ones laying around the house so I tried a 12v and ended up using the 9v one. You have to make sure the power adapter can handle the current draw of your fan, mine draws 220mA so I use a power adapter rated above that.

At the moment I'm just plugging it in when I need it, but I'm getting a plug so I can plug it into the 'switched outlet' on the back of my receiver. When I do that it will come on automatically when I turn the receiver on.

cheers

 

[jake5717]

Sooooooo.....What are you doing with the 12v?