Re: Cooling Node 0 (or your spare cupboard under the stairs!)

[Kim Wall <kim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Wayne wrote:
> I was wondering if it
> would be a false economy to use 12v pc fans - the 120mm versions.
Maybe
> 4 or 5 or so hooked up to a spare pc psu. The location of the cupboard
> is nice as it has direct access to the loft so I could vent the air up
> there.

As you probably read, I'm using four of these to ventilate a 26U 19"
rack, with a reasonable degree of success.

As I see it, the advantages of 120mm muffin fans, compared to say
bathroom extractor fans (the obvious alternative for this sort of
thing), is that they're fairly quiet, rated for continuous running, and
can be speed-controlled relatively easily to find the optimal compromise
between noise and airflow.  They're also an order of magnitude cheaper.

The disadvantages are, rather obviously, that you'll probably need a few
of them in parallel to get decent airflow, and that you'll have some
work to do if you need to connect them to ducting.

I'd suggest that a PC PSU is going to be more hassle than its worth...
You'll need to knobble the ATX switching, and they tend not to work
without a minimum load on the 5V and 12V rails.  A standard wall-wart
(I'm powering 4 fans from an unregulated 500mA 9V wall-wart, so they run
at slightly reduced speed) would be simpler and more efficient.


Kim.