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Cooling pinball machine

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Xiaou2:

Reiterating:  Trying to make hot air go down, will not work well.   There will be vortexes of air, and the flow will be a
bit of a mess in certain areas.  You will get hot-spots.

 Allow hot air to rise, and assist it by adding air speed and pressure from the fans.  That will reduce chances for dead
air vortexes, hotspots, etc..  and greatly increase cooling efficiency.

 Any heat sensitive PCBS:   Put a separate cooling fan in front of them, that forces air over the top of them.  Passive
cooling often isnt enough, nor is general airflow cooling.   You really need a forced air solution for these situations.

 Components which I recommend forced air cooling:  Hard Drives, CPUs, critical PCBs, most anything that uses a heat sink.

 Even if the internal temp rises pretty high... a forced air system on critical areas, can prevent lock ups and damages,
due to the very act of the strong breeze effect.

 And again, to maximize this, effect, one can also build ducts which enclose and focus the airflow over these parts, so that theres no way the air can vortex away from the area.


 Its very difficult to get a Positive pressure cooling system... in which theres so much air, that its pushing out everywhere.
Even so, you still may have hot spots.  Also, it may be very loud too.   This is why its better to use an intelligent duct system.

 I wouldnt worry as much about the 90 deg. thing, unless your talking about something like a Dust collector.  Which is probably what you were reading about.  The cooling system is far different from a dust collection system.  Also, with this,
you can have forced intake and forced out-put air fans / blowers.   As such, the vacuum it creates should be far more than
enough to cool very well.

 What will be more important, will be sealing of air leaks, reduced areas for cooling (ducts rather than large open spaces),
and powerful enough blowers / fans.


 Remember, you dont have to cool the entire box.  Just need to cool the heat generators, electronics, and provide passive vent escape for any excess.


Gray_Area:


--- Quote from: MTPPC on March 28, 2013, 01:55:19 pm ---
The real answer is that your fan should be sufficient to replace the cubic feet of air in the cabinet every couple of minutes. If you have at least this much airflow, it can't have a delta T (change in temperaturefrom outside to inside) of more than 10 or 20 degrees.

--- End quote ---

This. It's what HVAC techs do in figuring your home needs.

So seems to me the best simple solution is two intakes underneath the foot of the coffin, and two outputs with fans at the top back or sides of the coffin. Full draw and discharge, espcially because the monitor/playfield is at an angle upward that way.

Xiaou2:


--- Quote ---This. It's what HVAC techs do in figuring your home needs.

So seems to me the best simple solution is two intakes underneath the foot of the coffin, and two outputs with fans at the top back or sides of the coffin. Full draw and discharge, espcially because the monitor/playfield is at an angle upward that way.
--- End quote ---

 Sorry, but this isnt quite HVAC.

 HVAC uses Ducting.  It has no concern of cooling specialty heat sensitive electronics.  It has no concern of noise.  HVAC is located offsite, in basement and or outside.  Because of Ducting, theres no air vortexing, and dead-air spots.

 Again, think PC case.  Most specifically, extreme overclocked hot-box gamer pcs.   Forced airflow areas, with individual fans.  Large
diameter intakes pull fans.  Hot rise vents with push fans.

 Your idea is similar to whats needed, but its still needs some ducting to direct airflow, keep pressure, and keep dead air hot-spots, & vortexting, from occurring.

 Id intake at the bottom front, go into a duct that directs the air over the top of the LCD, between the glass, and then pushed out via
fans, in the upper back of the unit.   Possibly even entering the backbox, then out the top back of the backbox.

 The backbox, if carrying hot lighting, and or pcbs, will need cooling too.

 The Computer will probably be mounted to the rear wall of the base cabinet on a swing door?   Make a custom duct, and place intake fans from the floor of the cab, in front of it.   The air should flow over the HDs and CPU heatsink.   Possibly any video card or motherboard heatsinks that get hot.   Duct the exhaust out the upper rear of the cab.


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