A/V Equipment Cabinet Fan?
 

G'Day To The AAF Lounge..... As we wait for some of our new A/V room acquisitions to arrive, we've been looking at ways to employ an oversized real wood armoire as our next A/V cabinet. The problem with this very nice cabinet, as I see it, is the fact that it is short on ventilation and, for obvious reasons, I'd like to "open it up" a bit.

Has anyone on the board experimented with adding some kind of a fan to the rear of a cabinet to cool the interior down?

Along with a few other inherently cooler-running A/V items, the plan is to put our MC300 and our new MC205 into the cabinet, which, needless to say, means that we will have seven channels of amplification in an enclosed space.

I'll insert a few images of the armoire (upper and lower cabinets). As you will [hopefully] see, the cabinet, which is presently in storage, was created with electronics in mind. It came with an internal power strip and several "grommeted" cable passages, but I don't think that these passages are nearly enough to adequately ventilate a cabinet with seven channels of Mac living inside of it. ;)

The overall measurements of this particular armoire are: 41" Wide x 25" Deep x 82" Tall. All dividers and shelves are 3/4" thick.


The right side opening (pictured below), in the upper section of the armoire, is 15" wide x 31" tall (without the 10" shallow shelf).

Once again, the right side of the upper armoire is only 15" wide, so this section isn't wide enough to accommodate much in the way of A/V equipment.


https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...8c4870de8f.jpg



The left side opening (pictured below), in the upper section of the armoire, is 21" wide x 31" tall (without the 22" deep shelf).

The left side of the upper armoire, one more time, is 21" wide, so our Mac gear -- which is roughly 18.5" wide x 9.5" tall x 18.5" deep -- will
all fit into this particular cavity. In fact, our MC300, our new MC205 and our MX151 could all potentially fit into this opening.


https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...dc1cd45cc8.jpg


So the question is how to best go about improving ventilation on the left side of the cabinet?

As you can see (pictured above), the back panel of the cabinet has some nice openings routed into it,
so my thoughts are to install a fan, somewhere in the upper cabinet section of the overall armoire,
to lower the operating temperature that the amps will be operating in.




The left side opening in the lower cabinet (pictured below) is 21" wide x 23.5" tall (minus the 2 x 22" deep shelves).

These shelves are also removable, so a couple Mac units could also fit into this space. As you can see, there are also grooves
milled into the back of the lower cabinet, but, once again, is it enough to ventilate an amp?


https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...9e7282b098.jpg



Thanks for your time ~ B & J :cheers:

I've used AC Infinity fans in my Salamander Chameleon cabinet, intakes on the bottom below the components and exhausts mounted up high on the back panel. They are thermostatically controlled and generally very quiet and efficient.

Chameleon
 

Tom..... Is the "Chameleon" the style of Salmander cabinet you chose for your equipment? I'm asking because I didn't see it on the Salamander website.

Thanks for the post :thumbsup:

https://www.salamanderdesigns.com/chameleon-collection/

I believe AC Infinity is a sponsor here and they are available directly from dealers. Consider supporting them if you choose to go this way. Excellent products. https://www.acinfinity.com/quiet-cabinet-fans/

The Chameleons have rectangular plastic air vents in the bases, so I used AC Infinity S5 AirPlate dual 80mm thermostatic fans in place of all 3. They're slightly smaller than the Salamander openings but drop right in place with a bit of extra gasket material. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Salamander makes replacement removable back panels with a pair of 120mm exhaust fans, which are compatible with the AC Infinity multi fan controller https://www.amazon.com/AC-Infinity-C...sr=1-1-catcorr

I use one multi-zone programmable controller (4 zones) for all of the fans and it works very well in this cabinet.

I'm also a fan of AC Infinity, and bought mine from Ivan at a snazzy price.