Re: Temperature sensor for mac mini?!

["noel_pilot" <HA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The air will be coming in from the lounge through a grated type vent
in the door, then in the side of the cupboard I was thinking about
using a bathroom style extractor fan to extract into the lounge. The
wall is very thin, plasterboard small gap plasterboard.

At the moment i have the following:

Netgear Router
24 port switch
Marantz amp
xbox

Pc
15" flat screen (always off)

The ps is shortly to be replaced by a mac mini and a firewire four bay
enclosure for the drives.

Without the pc on its acceptable although the netgear kicks out a
surprising amount of heat, with the pc on the temperature rockets to
the point that the first time it happened and I had the door shut
without realising the pc eventually went into a reboot cycle because
it had got too hot!!

the bathroom extractor kit i saw (with a nice attractice silver
trim!!) was rated at 40db i think, which whilst I thought from a brief
look online was a bit on the loud side if it was only on when the
temperature was high then would not intrude too much.

Maybe with the mac mini and the firewire case the temperature may be
substantially less and I can do without the fan and just maybe the
grate at the bottom of the door may encourage a little air flow.

I keep the door open a little now so that helps a bit.

One other thing I keep thinking I should look at is to replace the
glass hifi style stand with a proper rack which would allow me to fit
rack mount cooling fans which i guess would also help a great deal
however its one of those things finding a reasonable price rack and
justifying it!!!

thanks for your comments Tim, greatly appreciated, anymore on this be
really good.

On the themostats you pointed to, I take it this wire in line with
either the neutral or the live to the appliance?! just using mains
rated connector blocks/junction boxes for the connections?

Cheers

Noel









--- In ukha_d@xxxxxxx, "Tim" <timsyahoo@...> wrote:
>
> It does rather depend on where you're taking the air from as to
whether it
> will have a large cooling effect. If it's coming from a lounge (for
e.g.) or
> another room within the heated envelope of the house, you'll get
*some*
> benefit, but obviously more benefit if the air was coming from a
cooler
> utility room or similar.
>
> There's also noise to consider. Generally you need as low a velocity
on the
> outlet as you can achieve - it's the high speed air that causes the
whoosh
> sound. Also pay careful attention to how you mount the fan so that the
> vibrations don't get transmitted through the building structure.
>
> How hot does the understairs cupboard get? What else do you have
there? I
> can't imagine a mac mini putting out too much heat...
>
> HTH,
>
> Tim.
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: noel_pilot
> >
> > Fantastic cheers Tim,
> > So if I put a vent in the bottom of the door to understairs
cupboard
> > and have exhaust fan at top do we think this could be reasonably
> > effective at cooling>!
> > Thanks
> > Noel
> > --- In ukha_d@xxxxxxx, "Tim Hawes" <timsyahoo@>
wrote:
> > >
> > > Noel,
> > >
> > > It might be an idea to intentionally separate the cooling
controls
> > > from the "PC" that's doing the controlling of
everything else...
> > >
> > > If you're going the bathroom extract route then a simple
mains
> > > themostat should do the trick e.g.
> > > http://forums.automatedhome.com/showpost.php?p=5752&postcount=5
> > > Note the requirement that for cooling the thermostat
contacts should
> > > *close* on high temperature whereas for a heating thermostat
they
> > > would normally *open* on high temp.
> > >
> > > HTH,
> > >
> > > Tim.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On 10/28/07, noel_pilot <HA@> wrote:
> > > > Hi all,
> > > > Hoping to pick up a mac mini shortly to become the
server for the
> > > > house with indigo for x10 ha control.  One thing I'm
thinking
that it
> > > > could also solve is my cooling issues within node 0. 
Im
thinking of a
> > > > bathroom extractor fan but due to noise I only want it
on when
> > > > temperature inside node 0 reaches a certain level. 
So....how
could I
> > > > go about getting temperature into the mac mini to be
usable by
indigo?
> > > >  I know there's lots of talk about one wire but I don't
have any
> > > > understanding of how that gets onto a computer apart
from
something
> > > > with I/O ports like homevision (think thats right from
memory?!)
> > > >
> > > > Any tips or pointers gratefully appreciated.
> > > >
> > > > Thanks
> > > >
> > > > Noel
> > > > p.s. tivo still available if anyone wants it!
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>