Cooling an AV cabinet - anyone built their own stetup or can point me at a decent local solution.

Forums › Home Workshop DIY › Cooling an AV cabinet - anyone built their own stetup or can point me at a decent local solution.

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Dynamic

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#1465261 7-Jan-2016 16:30

Wow that's a nice option at a pretty good price. Thanks for letting us know. I can think of at least one place I could use this solution.

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gedc

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#1465287 7-Jan-2016 17:31

Coolerguys.com has a wealth of nice stuff. Not too badly priced. I loaded up all my kit - fanciest stuff possible with LCD displays etc for $100. However.... they appear to use USPS Int Shipping Expedited only as none of the other options would work and to post two LCD thermal controllers and 2 fans was priced at $90 US...I order a fair bit from the states and $135 NZ for postage for a couple of small electronic parts seems ridiculous.

jonathan18

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#2845573 9-Jan-2022 09:58

Like the OP back six years ago, I'm looking to see what I can do to improve airflow around a receiver. It sits in a cabinet with about 5 cm gap at the top, and 2 cm on each side; the back is fully open.

My thoughts are to insert a USB-powered fan into the side of the cabinet to drawer out hot air - I'm thinking something from the Airplate series such as an S1 or S3. Or there are double fan versions like the S5.

Does anyone have any advice as to:

which model would be adequate for these purposes (details in screenshot below) - I'm thinking the smaller twin fan S5, given it has the same airflow as the S3, but would potentially work better in this situation.
the best place to mount the fan - I'm thinking on the side, central between front and back and as close to the top of the shelf as possible
whether there are any alternative/better options than this - would a cheap fan off AliExpress work just as well? (I'm concerned about ensuring it's damn quiet as well as reliable.)

Many thanks.

timmmay

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#2845575 9-Jan-2022 10:12

Have you considered these other to AC Infinity products:

I have a home made solution. It's a 140mm computer fan with rubber feet sitting on top of the receiver, pointing upwards. It doesn't expel the air from the enclosure but since the enclosure is open at the front it draws enough air through the receiver / moves it around enough the temps are ok. I made a little unit that is basically just a solid state relay, so when TV USB turns on it switches the relay on that lets a small 12V power supply send power to a fan. It would've been a lot easier to just get a USB fan, and if I was doing it again I'd just buy one of the products above.

nitro

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#2845577 9-Jan-2022 10:26

Dynamic: If anything in the cabinet has USB you could pull the fans from a cheap USB cooling pad or mount any USB powered fan in front of a rear-facing hole.

not if that 'anything' is an xbox, or presumably most modern gaming consoles... tried this with an xbox and depending on the standby power settings, it keeps the fan on.

jonathan18

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#2845578 9-Jan-2022 10:30

Cheers. As nifty as that unit at the bottom link looks, I'm not too keen on spending north of $200; but the other unit that just sits on top of the receiver could well be all I need and a lot less hassle than cutting holes in the cabinet. Would this do an adequate job of removing excess heat, given it's a relatively small surface area sitting directly on top of the receiver?

Definitely will be getting something USB powered as I just want it to be a set-and-forget system that turns on and off with the receiver. Unfortunately the receiver's only got USB on the front, so will require the front flap to be down permanently, but I guess that's a FWP...

timmmay

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#2845583 9-Jan-2022 10:40

jonathan18:

Cheers. As nifty as that unit at the bottom link looks, I'm not too keen on spending north of $200; but the other unit that just sits on top of the receiver could well be all I need and a lot less hassle than cutting holes in the cabinet. Would this do an adequate job of removing excess heat, given it's a relatively small surface area sitting directly on top of the receiver?

Definitely will be getting something USB powered as I just want it to be a set-and-forget system that turns on and off with the receiver. Unfortunately the receiver's only got USB on the front, so will require the front flap to be down permanently, but I guess that's a FWP...

I don't really know if it will be sufficient but it's not expensive to find out, and it should be a lot better than nothing. Amazon AU has some of the range. The only downside I see is it stays on all the time, it's not temperature sensitive or USB powered.

If you have a device with USB that turns off when the TV is off that might solve the problem. I think the same brand has a temperature probe that might also work.

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jonathan18

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#2845592 9-Jan-2022 11:46

Thanks... Reading reviews of that fan show many people reporting a single unit works well for cooling a receiver, though some note it's a bit louder than the straight-through version, but I don't think that's appropriate in my user case, as there'll be little headroom between the top of the fan and the shelf above, meaning it probably won't do as good a job of pushing air out. As such, I'll give the rear-blowing Multifan S2 a go.

Now I'm wondering about whether it's worth picking up something similar for my kids' PS4 Pro which gets hot and noisy when the fans ramp up, but there appear to be few vents on the top so unsure which is the best type for that...

neb

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#2845637 9-Jan-2022 14:37

gedc: Was thinking of a bog standard PC fan or indeed two linked up but not sure how to control the speed so it doesn't sound like a chopper is trying to take off behind the cabinet.

Google ACInfinity, they're pretty much the go-to solution for this sort of thing. And see my offer of free mounting hardware for it in the For sale/Wanted forum.

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