Rack cooling question

[Darren]

Hi Guys,

I received my EP 1500 and it is a tank, fan is loud so I'm gonna do the resistor mod to slow it down. I have another question though. Has anyone built a fan cooling system that just houses a fan or two in a component sized case to cool their rack? My rack is in a cabinet with only the front open, it get just a bit warm for my comfort and I'd like to cool it but I cannot put a fan on the sides or back.

If someone has built such a beast it would be great to see what they did. I have several ideas. It should be quite simple but someone may have found something even easier.

I'm having a heck of a time finding a reasonably priced blank case... Might have to fabricate it.

Thanks.

[ThomasW]

There are some replacement fan and other tricks to quiet the unit.

www.htguide.com/forum/showthread.php4?t=19024

There's no such thing as a reasonably priced cased that's big enough to hold cooling fans. What's wrong with whipping up something from wood?

[Darren]

Wood is an option, I actually built a wood case for my AKSA DIY amps. I also have lots of plate aluminum that I could fabricate from. I was just hoping there was some cheap source of cases but it doesn't look like it. I do have an older PC case, one of the horizontal ones that I might be able to do something with. We'll see.

I'll be doing the quiet fan mod...looks better than the resistor mod.

[howburger]

I will be replacing the fan in my EP2500 with the papst 8414NGL fan, it is 24V that apparently Behringer calls for and has what seems to be the best balance of DB/CFM at 12 DB and 19 CFM with a sleeve bearing system that supposedly is quieter than ball bearing and lasts almost as long. I'll post after I do the mod. with RS meter measurement comparisons.

Harold

[boostick4]

Has anyone tried one of those liquid coolers for high end gaming computers? I think they are around $100 or so. Probably go to AutoZone and get some aluminum tubing and weave it through the heat sinks in the amp. Just a thought.

[ThomasW]

The heatsinks in power amps are significantly larger than a CPU. So trying to jacket them as is done with a CPU would be problematic.

In addition the cost of water cooling bumps the price of the amp up to the cost of a passively cooled amp.

[Darren]

I see no real need for exotic cooling of the EP1500 or 2500. The simple quiet fan modification completely aleviated the problem. My initial question was cooling my component rack, I have several components in one rack that is enclosed on 3 sides. I ended up buying a 12v computer case fan rated at 21db and 2,000 RPM, about 27cubic feet per minute and used my recievers switched power and a transformer to hook it up. It now circulates plenty of air to keep everything quite cool. Worked great.