Any horror stories from not properly ventilating a MAME cabinet

[emb]

Haha... Ive built my share of pcs. Just because youve done things over and over doesnt mean you are doin it right. I guess we are all just smarter than those people with the fancy degrees that manufacture and sell these things to the public.

My point is, engineers don't make design decisions, Bean Counters do.

I think of it more as the bean counters are what limits our options for design. (I don't mean to split hairs or derail....I just couldn't resist )

[SavannahLion]

Benkenobi. Can you please explain how not including a 3 dollar intake fan blows the profitability on my 1500 gaming rig?  Damn bean counters!

I'm not Ben but I'll answer this anyways. It's pure economics of scale. Read up on Muntzing and educate yourself. 

[lastrega]

I think fans are a must if you use an lcd monitor, they alone can cause massive heat buildup...... I put 2 intake fans on the rear  and 4 output fans, near the top on my cocktail,( no dryer hose though:) ) and boy I am glad I did...... I can open my access panel even on a cool day in maine..... it gets warm in there, thanks mostly to my 32" lcd....... my four output fans are only inches from my lcd and they are more than enough to suck the heat out.... I am sure that if I would not have planned ahead my lcd would have been toast in a month......And I used all blue led fans to add a groovalicious look. and not to mention with 6 four led fans in there , I did not need a service light inside:)...... but as stated before , cheap insurance.........FANS   

[bkenobi]

Benkenobi. Can you please explain how not including a 3 dollar intake fan blows the profitability on my 1500 gaming rig?  Damn bean counters!

I'm not Ben but I'll answer this anyways. It's pure economics of scale. Read up on Muntzing and educate yourself. 

Exactly!  You're not thinking about the big picture here.  One fan may only cost $3, but then you have to multiply that out by 10,000 since that's your projected production run.  We can't take a $30,000 hit on this project, so the fan has to be left out.  Sorry, the end user will just have to understand there may be a few minor limitations.

 

[BruceM]

fans are must in properly ventilation. at least at myself

dunno, it is a big question, beacuse there is almost always financial limit. fan is a good option. there is another but more expensive options.

[Donkbaca]

You guys totally misunderstand the concept of economies of scale. Economies of scale have to do with advantages brought about through size that make production CHEAPER. If you were to use the above example, you could leverage your buying power and get those 10,000 fans for leas than 3 bucks a pop. Plus, if you were selling 10,000 of them you would totally take a hit if 30k because at 1,000 bucks a pop, you are talking about 10 MILLION dollars in revenue, 30k out of ten million is nothing. The only way a bean counter would get involved would be if there was some sort of cost benefit analysis thy would show that the projected warranty costs and lost good will from excluding the fan and making an inferior product would be less than the cost of adding the fan. That would involve hours of work and an engineer testing and evaluating a build with a fan and without. The cost of even DOING this analysis would be more than 30k.  So no, it's not bean counting. Come on guys

[ChadTower]

That's a nice theoretical explanation.  It doesn't actually work that way in the real world.  In the real world you get an arbitrary budget number to hit.  You get technical requirements to meet.  You start to work on the project and the requirements are increased.  Then the budget office "matrixes" two of your resources so they are now 50% instead of 100%.  Then another resource goes on unexpected 6 week leave to India.  Then the requirements are increased again.  The budget is never, ever increased.  Corners get cut to meet the date.  Often times the corners that get cut are the ones for which the analysis has not yet been done and do not directly affect functionality.  Stuff like cooling fans.

[SavannahLion]

You guys totally misunderstand the concept of economies of scale. Economies of scale have to do with advantages brought about through size that make production CHEAPER. If you were to use the above example, you could leverage your buying power and get those 10,000 fans for leas than 3 bucks a pop. Plus, if you were selling 10,000 of them you would totally take a hit if 30k because at 1,000 bucks a pop, you are talking about 10 MILLION dollars in revenue, 30k out of ten million is nothing. The only way a bean counter would get involved would be if there was some sort of cost benefit analysis thy would show that the projected warranty costs and lost good will from excluding the fan and making an inferior product would be less than the cost of adding the fan. That would involve hours of work and an engineer testing and evaluating a build with a fan and without. The cost of even DOING this analysis would be more than 30k.  So no, it's not bean counting. Come on guys

Quit digging your own grave. By your argument there would be no incentive for cost reductions and refinements in production electronics outside of bug fixes. That kind of analysis (assuming any analysis was done by engineer at all) to reduce costs happens all the time. Why do you think there are something on the order of 12 board revisions for the 2600? The first Heavy Sixers worked beautifully. Yet even before the consoles release, Atari was cuttings corners. To take a more modern example: Why do you think Sony and Microsoft have multiple console revisions? To cut costs.

This goes right back to Muntzing (did you read that link I gave you?). 1/8 of a penny here. $3 here. Getting rid of a wire there. Consolidate a couple of ICs. Across half a million units of product X, by a company that probably produces millions or billions of units of a thousand different products all across the spectrum and those numbers add up.

[SavannahLion]

I'm not debating donkbaca's purchasing in volume example but it paints an incomplete picture of what happens with large scale production and why a fan that details for $3 is potentially left out.

[Donkbaca]

I am not saying that these things DON'T happen, but they don't happen to prevent putting on  a 3 dollar fan and save 30,000 dollars.  You are right, revisions happen all the time to cut costs, but you're idea of costs only has to do with components.  MS revised the xbox so that it didn't RROD as easily, that cut costs because it reduced the warranty exposure that MS had.  Costs get further reduced through... wait for it.. economies of scale, whereby a company, like MS, can use its negotiating power to negotiate better deals from suppliers.  Costs also get reduced through mass production, the learning curve theory of production, there are LOTS of ways costs get reduced.  What I am saying does NOT happen, at least in succesful companies, is that the end all be all in product design is done by some analyst or accountant saying, "you know if we just got rid of that 3 dollar component..."  

Your whole argument is that cost cutting results in lower quality products, now you give an example, the xbox 360, where costs were cut and a SUPERIOR product was made.  Another problem is that this is assuming that companies care mostly about cost, and they don't they care about profit.  THe cost of inputs is just one component of cost.  

If that three dollar fan REALLY was that important, then a competitor would think, " hey, we should add that fan to our $1,000 pc.  Yeah it would increase the cost by 0.03% but it would give us and advantage over company Y because our machines would last longer.  This is how MOST companies make it in this world, by competing on differentiation rather than just price, and when it comes to a lot of consumer goods, especially the more pricey ones, quality is more important to the consumer than price.  Lets say this fan will increase the reliability and life of my product.  I add the fan, sell it for $1,100 market it to people out there as, "buy my pc, it will last longer and be reliable."  The utility we are talking about here that we are attributing to the fan; longer life and better stability; are worth a LOT to the consumer, we could EASILY charge a huge premium on this if it were true.

Believe what you want to believe

[bkenobi]

WARNING...none of this applies to arcade cabs!

FWIW, auto manufacturers scrutinize over fractions of a penny on fasteners.  They use those fasteners everywhere, so that fraction of a penny does become important for their bottom line.

Some industries don't get to cut corners.  Look at any gov't contract or product that is used for mass transportation.  These things require that pretty much all parts go through expensive testing and typically cost more per unit than the retail market would bare.  A fan that costs $3 for joe consumer would cost $50 if it were installed on an airplane for example.  In fact, I've seen where stuff that has nothing to do with the product being sold is rediculously expensive even when thousands are needed.  My company regularly pays several hundred USD for hard drives that I can pick up from NewEgg for <<$100.   

[boardjunkie]

I can't believe the Madman Muntz reference. Thats great someone remembers this now legendary cheapskate. He had *no* problem sacrificing performance for profit.....to the point of the sets ending up barely operable.....

[yotsuya]

Benkenobi. Can you please explain how not including a 3 dollar intake fan blows the profitability on my 1500 gaming rig?  Damn bean counters!

I'm not Ben but I'll answer this anyways. It's pure economics of scale. Read up on Muntzing and educate yourself. 

Thanks for the Muntz link. Made for some fun reading!

[ChadTower]

Benkenobi. Can you please explain how not including a 3 dollar intake fan blows the profitability on my 1500 gaming rig?  Damn bean counters!

I'm not Ben but I'll answer this anyways. It's pure economics of scale. Read up on Muntzing and educate yourself. 

Thanks for the Muntz link. Made for some fun reading!

[Donkbaca]

I guess you have all figured out the manufacturing business.  Damn business school, you were such a waste of time....

[SavannahLion]

Yep, looks like a total waste for you.

The picture you're painting is getting better but still incomplete. 

[Donkbaca]

Your own article about Muntz talks about how his philosophy backfired, consumers turned against him and he went bankrupt.  It concludes with saying that the example isn't even applicable today because the costs associated are so small they aren't worth fighting over.  Which is pretty much what I have been saying. 

I don't see how you can point to that article and say, "this is why we need to add a fan to a MAME cab."  Or am i missing something?

[yotsuya]

Benkenobi. Can you please explain how not including a 3 dollar intake fan blows the profitability on my 1500 gaming rig?  Damn bean counters!

I'm not Ben but I'll answer this anyways. It's pure economics of scale. Read up on Muntzing and educate yourself. 

Thanks for the Muntz link. Made for some fun reading!

Yeah, I know, but I'm a sucker for biographies... 

[Woodshop Flunky]

So I guess the answer is no, there are no horror stories.

I once dug up an old arcade cabinet that I found buried in my backyard.    I spent the better part of a week fixing it up, getting that old beauty whirring again.   Finally the moment was at hand, I plugged it in.    Rather than the standard BIOS screen to celebrate my success, I was greeted by a...um...cursed circle thingy...

Cursed Circle Thingy...

Chills went through down my spine.  Soon after the video completed, I received a phone call.  The crackly voice at the other end of the line just said "two days..." and hung up.   I spent the next 48 hours digging through old microfiche newspapers at the library, trying to find something that would help, anything to explain this madness.   47.5 hours into my search I found the article...."Cursed arcade machine buried in ancient Indian burial ground!"  I immediately called the police and frantically tried to explain what was happening...to no avail.  They did not believe me.   I sped home, at high speeds, narrowly avoiding car accident after accident.   I ran into my house, just as the phone rang.   I answered the phone, slowly putting the receiver to my ear.   To my horror, I heard screeching, wild noises, of animals being tortured and nails being dragged slowly down chalk boards.   I immediately hung up.   The phone rang again!  I picked up and screamed "Why are you torturing me!   I just want to play space invaders!...maybe a little NBA JAM, if there's time!"   A voice yelled through the line "Mark!  Mark!  This is the police!  We traced the call, and it came from....INSIDE YOUR ARCADE MACHINE!"     I immediate opened up the access panel behind the cabinet.   Inside, on top of the computer, was only a note...  It read....

Sup Mark, I'm the creepy evil spirit thing, that's hell bent on creeping you out 'n' stuff.   You like totally saved the day, I just realized that you installed some exhaust fans in here.   I feel soooo much better now, thank you for doing that.   I wasn't really cursed, I was just like hot in here.

The End.  Crisis averted.  Exhaust fans worked for me.  

I can't believe nobody commented on this post!   I thought it was funny!   

[Donkbaca]

Agreed.  Now if you all will excuse me, I have some business cards to print up.

Joe Bruckheimer - Dolphin Trainer

[Vigo]

Believe it or not, this forum used to be fun.

 

Yeah, and remember when a bowl of soup was a nickel?

[ChadTower]

Yeah, and remember when a bowl of soup was a nickel?

This is the worst-looking hat I ever saw. What, when you buy a hat like this I bet you get a free bowl of soup, huh?  Oh, it looks good on you though.

[emb]

All hop on the derail boat!

I'm really enjoying this debate.

[Gray_Area]

Fans spin. Whichever way you point them means air goes thataway.

I once dug up an old arcade cabinet...The End.  Crisis averted.  Exhaust fans worked for me. 

I can't believe nobody commented on this post!   I thought it was funny!   

I missed it, too. Pretty good.

[atomikbohm]

While we are at it why don't we discuss:

1) Giving Microsoft government contracts for products that aren't finished (what service pack is windows xp, vista, 7, up to now?  MS Office same question)
2) Give trickle down economics another try but let's try it with a couple trillion dollars this time.  (The problem with the previous attempts was that there just wasn't enough money to make it all the way to the bottom.)
3) Warren Jeffs, what's the big deal.

(That ought to do it Money, Sex and Politics ... and that's just number 2)

(... Thermo nuclear thread detonation in 5...4...3...2...  )