cooling a hot box

[GEB]

A friend of mine has cobbled together a lot of computer parts for special project. They are spread all over the floor and need an enclosure. The issue is they generate a lot of heat. Space wise we are talking about something 3 feet wide, 2 feet wide and 3 feet tall, or 18qft. For access the top and all four walls make up the lid. This way the components stay attached to wire frame racks that allow air movement and the racks are secured to the base. Are there better ways of cooling this box besides a fan at one end and a vent at the other? Will baffles, push-pull fans help?

[cputnam]

Can you use some of the newer water cooled boards or technology?

[ianab]

cputnam said:

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Can you use some of the newer water cooled boards or technology?

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Water cooling will get the heat away from the chips in question, but you still need to vent it from the case. OK, you can move your radiator to the outside, but that's hardly "elegant".

Intake and exhaust fans will improve the airflow a little, and gives you some redundancy if a fan goes bad,.

Baffles are mostly used to direct air flow at a particular part of the system, and prevent the air just taking the easiest path to the outlet. So you arrange some sort of baffle to direct airflow, maybe via some sort of duct to the heat sink, power supply or hard disk that's going to get hot.

Hard to comment further without knowing what he's actually got in there. If it's gear that will be fine just sitting in open air (but will cook in a box) I would consider some exhaust fans at the top of the enclosure, where the hot air will naturally gather, and vents around the bottom to draw in fresh air. That means you are working WITH any convection inside the case.

[Phil S.]

Can you separate the top panel from the sides with an air gap top and bottom so there's an easy path for the warm air to exit the box- sort of a floating lid?

[bandsaw]

Small window type air conditioner - cheap and quick.

[AHill]

They make rack mounted cooling fans. Usually in a gang of 3 side-by-side. Just google and you'll find plenty of choices. You can either distribute single cooling fans or buy several together, which increases airflow around the enclosure. You will still need to vent the enclosure, otherwise all you're building is a convection oven.

[GEB]

Why I love this forum, ask a question and receive some real good answers. I really like the idea of pulling hot air out rather than creating pressure and more heat (convection?). I will share all this with my tinkerer friend and come up with a solution. Thanks all for your ideas.
Bill

[Ruler2112]

Two thoughts:

I've used 120 mil fans with grills bolted onto both sides and particleboard wall sandwiched between at work. 5" holesaw for the airflow & connected to a 12 volt power adapter to run the fan. The computers are in a very small cabinet and get extremely hot otherwise; fans are exhausting out the back near the top of the cabinet & the door doesn't seal tight enough to restrict air flow in.

He could throw out all that junk & replace it with a Raspberry Pi.