AV Cabinet Cooling Solutions.

[Spatial]

Having put together my new AV set up I find that the cabinet all the stuff is in gets rather hot.

Anyone got any recommendations for anything they've tried themselves?

I've been thinking of cobbling together something to help the air circulate - some silent PC fans run through a fan controller and running it off the mains. I'm no electrics wizard but I understand that I'll need to convert it from 240v mains to 12v.

What's the best and easiest way of doing this?

I was sure you could get converters for this sort of thing, but I've spent an hour looking and can't find anything with a Molex connector plug to go from the mains to the controller.

Alternatively, seeing as I'll be popping a controller on to the front, would a SATA drive enclosure allow me to use a mains voltage plug?

[EvilBoris]

I was sure you could get converters for this sort of thing, but I've spent an hour looking and can't find anything with a Molex connector plug to go from the mains to the controller.

This might sound crazy but have you thought of using....a PC PSU?...

[Spatial]

That's just crazy talk and you know it.

Yeah it had crossed my mind but it seemed like overkill to have a PC power supply sitting there for just three fans, plus I wasn't sure how to contain it and there's the problem of additional noise.

I'd prefer something a little neater / quieter if I can get away with it.

[VR46]

How about something like a USB powered laptop cooling pad, like this one ?

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=29973&criteria=cooling%20fan&doy=31m8

Don't know if it would be powerful enough to combat the 360's global warming effort or not.

[Spatial]

It's actually the top of the AV Amp that's generating the real heat so I was looking to shift that away with the fans.

That notebook cooler might work but I'm dubious as to how effective / powerful it would be.

[paulus]

Fans

How about trying this?

http://www.instructables.com/id/USB-Desktop-Fan/

[Spatial]

For anyone interested, this is what I cobbled together using a SATA drive case, a fan controller, lots of cables from my stash and some left over PC fans.







The cables need to be masked properly to hide them and tidy it up a bit but it's not bad given that all of it (except the fan controller) was spare stuff. The Velcro strips work wonders for deadening any vibrations from the fans too



Now I just have to work out the best position for the fans to maximise the air flow. All one one side (as in that picture) didn't really work and I'm guessing that placing them all on one side might create an inversion.

[charlesr]

Very "swish" (see what I did there?)

[Spatial]

Budum-tish!


It's going to need better fans tho - these ones might be quiet but they're pants. I need to find some with the right balance of umph vs shush