If it were me I'd keep the PC in its case (to keep its forced air cooling), run some flexable "dryer vent" style tube from the exhaust fan(s) to the upper cab vent. Adding a fan to blow out warm air from the monitor would be a good idea...
The vent tube is not overkill, but needed to properly displace warm air and bring in fresh air. If you just leave the pc in there, it will recycle its own exhaust (there's no air movement inside a cab) and run warmer than it should. I've been involved in the amusement industry as a tech for over 20 years, and I know how much a monitor alone can heat up a cab. A PC dissipates far more heat than an arcade board and small switching supply.
So I guess its up to the builder what you want to do. But I would make the extra effort (its not that hard) to keep everything inside the cab as happy as possible if its expected to last and run reliably.
Fans "don't do anything"? That goes against every rule of thermodynamics......
Well I made sure that when cutting out the sides of my cab I was exact to get an airtight seal..... I was wondering this same thing, since I am putting an xbox 360 in my cabinet, but I ultimately decided against it. Here is my thinking::stupid
1) Fans are LOUD, no getting around it, and they get really dirty. I don't want to deal with the additional noise and cleaning.
2) cabs are really leaky, I figure with the amount of space in there, plus the holes in the back, plus the leakage around the coin door/ joints, there will be plenty of air flow.
3) The PC and Xbox both have heat sensors and will shut down before any damage is done. If it overheats and shuts off, I'll add fans later.
4) If it all melts down I really don't care. I got a refurbed 360 for 100 bucks, the PC was a P4 that was free and I have another one on hand in case that one takes a dump. Storage is so cheap, I have the hard drive cloned. If the xbox takes a dump, I'll get another one for cheap, and if the pc explodes, I'll just swap it out with the new one and then add fans.
IMO (without running any calculations), you will get most of your cooling from heat rising out the top leakage paths and being replaced by relatively cool air through lower leak paths. From what I've seen, many cabs just put a hole on the top with louvers (presumably to keep stuff from falling in) and leave the cab relatively poorly sealed (coin door, CP, rear door, designed vents in the back/front, etc).
Houses used to be cooled this way back (albeit with actual design intended) before air conditioning, right?They still are. Attics are designed to remain vented to help with moisture issues. There are soffit vents at the low points on the roof that need to remain open to keep fresh air entering. There are different ways to vent the high point of the roof, but jack vents are one of the more common. You won't likely feel any air movement if you enter the attic (unless a strong wind kicks up), but you can be assured that this ventilation is effective and REQUIRED! I just bought a house last year that the vents had been all but covered in one section of the house. That section had massive damage to the sheeting and rot/mold issues in some locations. The roof had been redone ~2 years prior, so this ventilation truly makes a HUGE difference.
With my cab build right now I am designing it to use a 360, my plan is to remove it completely form its housing and mount the MB on PCB feet, moving the dvd drive and hopefully alleviating heat problems
Chad had a good idea, I'd be interested to see someone without cooling put a fan in their cabinet before running it, then running it a while, and reporting back on temperature rises.
If I had a MAME cab I'd do it just to satisfy the debate.
If I had a MAME cab I'd do it just to satisfy the debate.
I think we both know it won't satisfy anything. :)
I like to blow air in the bottom (of course with a dust screen attached)
The vent tube is not overkill, but needed to properly displace warm air and bring in fresh air. If you just leave the pc in there, it will recycle its own exhaust (there's no air movement inside a cab) and run warmer than it should. I've been involved in the amusement industry as a tech for over 20 years, and I know how much a monitor alone can heat up a cab. A PC dissipates far more heat than an arcade board and small switching supply.
So I guess its up to the builder what you want to do. But I would make the extra effort (its not that hard) to keep everything inside the cab as happy as possible if its expected to last and run reliably.
So I guess the answer is no, there are no horror stories.
For what it's worth every single audio install I have seen and or worked on pulls cool air in from the bottom [with a fan] and lets it out through the top. And I am talking amplifiers, tube equipment etc - the hot stuff. I have never seen one installed with fans pulling air out from the top. Though it would work, maybe it wouldn't be as effective. I don't know the science behind it.
(http://www.lashen.com/vendors/MAP/images/dwrpassive.jpg)
A pc though? I think adding some fans and or vents is more for piece of mind than really a requirement.
Dude I've played arcade games for more than 30 years and repaired 'em for 20. Its not my top priority in life. Why do you care so much that I want my stuff to last? I'll do it the way I want to, so quitchabitchin.....
You can build a fire in your nifty MAME cab for all I care.....
The reason they exhaust is because the point of the fans is to remove heat, not intake air. The pc doesnt need air to function. If you blew air in and just let it leak out, you run the risk of heat building up as all you are doing is recirculating hot air around the case. The heat sinks radiate heat away from the circuits, warming the air around them the fans blow this hot air out. If you had fans blowing in, you would be blowing this hot air right back on the circuits until it found a way to escape
why do you need to draw air in? I don't think you are using what you need to use, I think you are using what you want to use. Its funny that tech companies spend millions of dollars designing their products, with things like heat dissapation in mind, and we figure that we need to add a 10 dollar fan to keep everything from going super nova....Interesting. I'm a thermal analyst for a multi-billion dollar international company. This is what I do. I guess what I do is funny?
If it makes you feel better, put a fan in. Its kinda like a night light, it keeps the pretend boogey men away. Doesn't actually help anything, but if it makes you feel better, go for it.
AHA! Why are companies spending so much money hiring people like Bkenobi when any jackass just needs to add fans! Stop screwing us on OEM corner cutting Bkenobi! We want to feel the breeze coming off our electronics. I expect my entertainment center to cause a damn mini hurricane when I am running all of that stuff! :angry:
AHA! Why are companies spending so much money hiring people like Bkenobi when any jackass just needs to add fans! Stop screwing us on OEM corner cutting Bkenobi! We want to feel the breeze coming off our electronics. I expect my entertainment center to cause a damn mini hurricane when I am running all of that stuff! :angry:
Obviously, by his namesake, we can infer that bkenobi went into thermal engineering in order to design thermal detonators. I'd be careful about that next electronic device you purchase. :P
AHA! Why are companies spending so much money hiring people like Bkenobi when any jackass just needs to add fans! Stop screwing us on OEM corner cutting Bkenobi! We want to feel the breeze coming off our electronics. I expect my entertainment center to cause a damn mini hurricane when I am running all of that stuff! :angry:
That's weird. Had a nice long post and I got logged off with an invalid cert. Now some of the thread is missing ???
So I guess the answer is no, there are no horror stories.
Interesting. I'm a thermal analyst for a multi-billion dollar international company. This is what I do. I guess what I do is funny?
I have normal CPU cooler and case fans on the PC in my cab. Small air vents in the cabinet. The cabinet sits in my garage where temps during the summer hit 115f degrees... I've had no issues in 5 years. Of course the PC has been upgraded a couple times in 5 years, but still no issues.
Any horror stories of someone over ventilating their name cab?
Some fans blow some suck.
That'll be $50,000. Who should I send the bill to? :laugh2:
Uhm, fans don't actually cool anything.
Some fans blow some suck.
Not to be nitpicky, but don't all fans suck and blow at the same time? I get that some fans are designed to blow, and some were born to suck, but to get things flowing, a fan has to always suck from one end and blow on the other end. It's just kinda basic physics.
OK, this post is sounding very, very wrong. I better stop right now. :angel:
Uhm, fans don't actually cool anything.
(http://vortexarcade.home.comcast.net/~vortexarcade/images/googlecoolingfan.jpg)
I've never seen a pc or other electronic device that blows air in, they all exhaust. But people over build their mame cabs all the time
The reason they exhaust is because the point of the fans is to remove heat, not intake air. The pc doesnt need air to function. If you blew air in and just let it leak out, you run the risk of heat building up as all you are doing is recirculating hot air around the case. The heat sinks radiate heat away from the circuits, warming the air around them the fans blow this hot air out. If you had fans blowing in, you would be blowing this hot air right back on the circuits until it found a way to escape
Interesting. I'm a thermal analyst for a multi-billion dollar international company. This is what I do. I guess what I do is funny?
NSFW
The Goodfellas - Funny how?? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pd30jbfTcE#noexternalembed-ws)
Some fans blow some suck. The fans at the back of your system (PSU and system fans) are typically designed as exhaust fans. They suck air OUT of the case out into the room. Fans on the front of a case (hard drive coolers for instance) are typically going to blow air past the HDD INTO the case. As far as heat transfer goes. both methods work equally. This is convection and the primary drivers in that form of heat transfer are flow speed and delta temperature. The equation is:
q=h*A*dT
where,
h = film coefficient (driven by flow speed, geometry, etc)
A = surface area
dT = difference in temperature between air and surface temperatures
The direction of the flow makes little difference (it's factored in with h, but a forced convection flow is really independent of what direction the flow moves). The area is pretty important, obviously, but it's set by the hardware in the system. The delta temperature is also critical as you get no heat transfer if the air inside the case is the same as the component being cooled. Increasing the velocity is good, but can make for more noise which is potentially bad.
Anyway, my point is that whether the fan blows air in or sucks air out, it really doesn't make as much difference as you would think. Now, if I were designing the flow, I'd use exhaust fans or else add fans pointing at components to make sure there was forced flow in those areas.
That'll be $50,000. Who should I send the bill to? :laugh2:
The reason they exhaust is because the point of the fans is to remove heat, not intake air. The pc doesnt need air to function. If you blew air in and just let it leak out, you run the risk of heat building up as all you are doing is recirculating hot air around the case. The heat sinks radiate heat away from the circuits, warming the air around them the fans blow this hot air out. If you had fans blowing in, you would be blowing this hot air right back on the circuits until it found a way to escape
Sorry Don... but you are wrong.
BTW - How many PC's have you built? I'm up to about 80 or so.
Not to be nitpicky, but don't all fans suck and blow at the same time? I get that some fans are designed to blow, and some were born to suck, but to get things flowing, a fan has to always suck from one end and blow on the other end. It's just kinda basic physics.Point of reference. If you are talking about a fan sitting out in the open where the domain is both sides, then yes a fan both sucks and blows. However, if your analysis domain has the fan mounted on the boundary, then the fan would either suck or blow. In reality though, the difference is moot as the analysis doesn't care what you call it, it just cares what the sign on the velocity is (which direction the velocity vector points).
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.
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.
Benkenobi. Can you please explain how not including a 3 dollar intake fan blows the profitability on my 1500 gaming rig? Damn bean counters!
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.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 (http://www.national.com/rap/Story/0,1562,17,00.html) and educate yourself. :cheers:
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
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 (http://www.national.com/rap/Story/0,1562,17,00.html) and educate yourself. :cheers:
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 (http://www.national.com/rap/Story/0,1562,17,00.html) and educate yourself. :cheers:
Thanks for the Muntz link. Made for some fun reading!
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 (http://www.national.com/rap/Story/0,1562,17,00.html) and educate yourself. :cheers:
Thanks for the Muntz link. Made for some fun reading!(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v686/nemo_mz23/L2/nelson_muntz_ha_ha.gif)
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... (http://www.youtube.com/embed/qkVlC2WgEwc)
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. ;D
Believe it or not, this forum used to be fun.
:banghead:
Yeah, and remember when a bowl of soup was a nickel?
I once dug up an old arcade cabinet...The End. Crisis averted. Exhaust fans worked for me. ;D
I can't believe nobody commented on this post! :) I thought it was funny! :laugh2: