I am currently building a wall unit to house my TV and assorted components. Under the TV will be two cabinets both of which are 22” deep, 25” wide and 16” tall with one shelf in each cabinet. The following equipment will be housed in these cabinets:

Onkyo 674 (runs very hot)
Scientific Atlanta HD DVR (runs very hot)
XBOX 360 (runs pretty hot)
Nintendo WII
Playstation III (not purchased yet, but I may get it)
Sony DVD player (will be swapping for a HD/Blu ray player down the road)


My current plan for keeping these components cool is to vent the toe kick area (the horizontal surface near the front of the cabinet that overhangs) to allow for air intake. (six vents per cabinet , 5” long, 3/8” wide) and to add a 4.5” round hole in the top back of the cabinet with a 120mm fan attached to the inside for an exhaust. To ensure the air flow moves past my components the shelves will run from the front to the back with no room in front or behind. Under where each component will go there will be one or two square vents to allow air to flow from below the shelf to above. In addition I plan on placing my hotter equipment (receiver and HD DVR) on the top shelf.

Does anyone see any problems here?

For cooling equipment I was originally looking at Active Thermal’s “system 2” (the 2 separate fans). This system matches a thermostat with variable speed fans, as the cabinet gets hotter the fans work harder. If the temp inside is below the temp you specify then the fans shut off (or turn very slowly).

As an alternative, I am also looking at 2 scythe s-flex fans, a 110v AC to 12v DC power supply and a power splitter cable. The downside here is that the fans would always be on and would run at one speed.

I want to do what is right for my equipment and to that end I don’t care about spending the extra for the Active Thermal system but I’m just not sure that the second solution won’t do what I want at $250 less.

What would you do?

Thanks for your help and if you need some more information please let me know


-bryan

You're thinking well about this; I think it'll work fine. Consumer electronics are usually designed to tolerate more heat than your typical overclocked PC, because the typical consumer doesn't know about cooling.

I would go for the thermally controlled fans. Fan noise in a movie watching setting is an undesirable thing. You may be able to find cheaper thermally controlled fans at various computer outlets online (although you'd need a Radio Shack 110->12V transformer).

You're thinking well about this; I think it'll work fine. Consumer electronics are usually designed to tolerate more heat than your typical overclocked PC, because the typical consumer doesn't know about cooling.

I would go for the thermally controlled fans. Fan noise in a movie watching setting is an undesirable thing. You may be able to find cheaper thermally controlled fans at various computer outlets online (although you'd need a Radio Shack 110->12V transformer).


Thanks for the reply. I'll check out some of the computer outlets for a cheaper alternative.

If that doesn't pan out how loud is the fan I selected going to be?

My seating is 9' away from the cabinets and the rating on the fan is as follows:

Model # Dimensions Fan Speed Fan Noise Air Flow Rated Current Volts Sku#

SFF21E 120x120x25mm 1,200rpm 20.1dBA 49.0CFM 0.15A 12V 840556025450

SFF21F 120x120x25mm 1,600rpm 28.0dBA 63.7CFM 0.20A 12V 840556025467