AV Amp ventilation...

Blinkz · 20 Jun 2015 at 10:52

Hey folks,

Just got myself a new tv cabinet and trying to work out the best way to fit all my kit into it.

I've found out that both the amp and centre speaker fit nicely into the centre of the unit, however it leaves very little space around the amp. I'm guessing this is asking for trouble as it will over heat? Picture below of how it looks.

Not the best picture sorry. Hope you can see the issue though. Its not the end of the world as I could move the shelf up and put the sky box where the speaker is to have an inch or two of ventilation. The Onkyo manual says that it needs 8 inches about! Is that overkill? I'm going to drill into the back of the cabinet and put lots of extra holes so aid ventilation, both for the centre area and the side cupboards which will have a HTPC, Xbox1 etc.

Any advice welcome!

Blinkz · 28 Jun 2015 at 12:26

Thanks for the comments guys, confirms what I thought! I'll move the centre shelf up to give the amp a few inches space above it, putting the sky box on the shelf and the centre speaker on top of the unit, beneath the tv closer to ear height. I'll also be cutting lots of ventilation holes out the back of the unit to allow more air to flow through it. If that doesn't work I'll look at installed a fan or two.

Blinkz · 28 Jun 2015 at 13:32

Thanks, the sky box should also have some space around it. It isn't used much so spends most of its life in standby.

I'm going to put a HP micro server in one of the side cupboards, again with lots of holes cut out the back of the unit to give the server some ventilation. Do you guys thing that will be enough? Its passively cooled with just a small fan on the PSU, with 5 HDDs in it.

An Xbox one will be in the other cupboard, again with lots of holes cut out the back to help with ventilation.

Do we think they'll be ok?

Blinkz · 28 Jun 2015 at 22:02

Good idea with the blu tack, although the doors on the front of my cabinet are quite deep so don't think that would work! It's the front ventilation I'm concerned about, especially for the server. Cutting off the back might be easier then cutting lots of individual holes, will that be enough ventilation?