Warm cupboard

New to PC silencing? Read & post your questions here. Dedicated to rosy_toes.

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee

Post Reply
Bowser_23
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Jul 09, 2013 11:30 pm

Warm cupboard

Post by Bowser_23 » Tue Jul 09, 2013 11:37 pm

Hi - be gentle, first post, hope this is the right place

Have Mac Mini, Apple TV, Modem, Router and 4 drive NAS, all on 24/7 and all getting pretty hot in a cupboard. Can you recommend a silentish fan to get some of that heat out. Living in France so needs to be 220-240v

Thanks

Chris

Vicotnik
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 1831
Joined: Thu Feb 13, 2003 6:53 am
Location: Sweden

Re: Warm cupboard

Post by Vicotnik » Wed Jul 10, 2013 4:23 am

Passive intake at the bottom, exhaust fan at the top somewhere. Ideal is something like old computer fan paired with old mobile phone charger.

Welcome to SPCR. :)

CA_Steve
Moderator
Posts: 7650
Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2005 4:36 am
Location: St. Louis, MO

Re: Warm cupboard

Post by CA_Steve » Wed Jul 10, 2013 6:03 am

Vicotnik wrote:Passive intake at the bottom, exhaust fan at the top somewhere. Ideal is something like old computer fan paired with old mobile phone charger.
+1.

Unless it's a really old phone charger, it will have 5Vdc output. So, you'll need a fan that starts up at less than 5V. You can get an idea by looking through the Fan/Control articles.

Bowser_23
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Jul 09, 2013 11:30 pm

Re: Warm cupboard

Post by Bowser_23 » Wed Jul 10, 2013 6:57 am

CA_Steve wrote:
Vicotnik wrote:Passive intake at the bottom, exhaust fan at the top somewhere. Ideal is something like old computer fan paired with old mobile phone charger.
+1.

Unless it's a really old phone charger, it will have 5Vdc output. So, you'll need a fan that starts up at less than 5V. You can get an idea by looking through the Fan/Control articles.

Great thanks all - how do I connect the phone charger to the fan?

Vicotnik
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 1831
Joined: Thu Feb 13, 2003 6:53 am
Location: Sweden

Re: Warm cupboard

Post by Vicotnik » Wed Jul 10, 2013 8:02 am

Both should have two leads; + and -. Those are the two you are interested in anyway. The fan might have three leads (+, - and RPM) if it's a three pin fan (normal chassis fan).

Connect + on the fan to + on the charger. And - to -. If you connect + to - the fan will not spin, but nothing will break since the fan usually is polarity protected. Short circuiting the charger can damage it though, so be careful not to do that.

If you've never meddled with basic electronics before this is a great way to learn.

Spoon Boy
Posts: 168
Joined: Sun Jan 23, 2005 11:44 pm
Location: London

Re: Warm cupboard

Post by Spoon Boy » Wed Jul 10, 2013 8:47 am

If you didn't want to go with active cooling (using a fan) and cutting holes in the door, another option if it suited the surrounding decor could be to change the cupboard door for a louvre door.

Post Reply