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Any horror stories from not properly ventilating a MAME cabinet
Donkbaca:
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:
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.
Hoopz:
--- Quote from: Donkbaca on June 28, 2011, 12:19:17 pm ---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:
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.
--- End quote ---
:stupid
Add to it that the sides of the cab are going to allow for heat transfer too. Unless someone put insulation in there, some of the heat is going to go out thru the sides and top of the cab itself and not just through any little crevices. Considering how many cubic feet are in a "typical" cabinet for air to move and heat to escape, I don't see the point in adding fans.
bkenobi:
Yes, heat will be conducted through the wood sides, but that's not really going to make that much difference IMO. You have natural convection with hot air to warm wood on the inside, then natural convection from warm wood to warm air on the outside. You are going to get very little heat transfer even with the large surface area due to small delta temperatures and no forced air flow either inside or outside. I am ignoring radiation affects as that's a 4th order factor of temperature difference and is thus minimal.
Since the sides of the cabinet are wood, you will get very poor heat transfer especially with 3/4". If you made the sides out of metal, you would do better, but the limiting factor would still be the small deltaT between the inside and outside coupled with the minimal air movement.
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).
boardjunkie:
Those 360s are incredibly sensitive to heat buildup. Thats what causes the "red rings" failure. I'd be careful with that. I hear all the horror stories from a guy here in town who repairs that kind of stuff. Many thousands of $$ worth of BGA reflow equipment are required to properly repair it. And if the board warps, it will likely never operate right again.
http://ecadigitallibrary.com/pdf/56thECTC/s17p6cq.pdf
Read all about it....
saint:
--- Quote from: bkenobi on June 28, 2011, 12:36:03 pm ---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).
--- End quote ---
Houses used to be cooled this way back (albeit with actual design intended) before air conditioning, right? 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.
I'd be pretty leery of a 360 like boardjunkie said. I do not think I'd be terribly concerned about a PC.
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