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Gear in racks getting too hot.

“I have 10 pieces of processing gear, most of it digital, in a rack in my control room. The equipment is getting very hot to the point that it burns me when I touch the front panels. I don’t really want to leave a space between each piece because I like the compact size of the rack. I certainly don’t want fans in my control room. I spent a lot of money remoting my computer for just this reason. Is this heat really that bad for the equipment? What should I do?”

Most modern equipment is designed with enough tolerance to be able to withstand significant amounts of heat. It’s not at all unusual for processing gear to get hot to the touch. Some keyboards do as well. It’s not a huge cause for concern, however, when you stack 10 digital reverbs together in one small rack the combined heat of all of them can become too great, and does pose a threat to the equipment.

There are basically two solutions: ventilation and/or air movement. Ventilation can be accomplished by leaving spaces between some of the units as you mention. It can also be accomplished by drilling or cutting holes and slots in the rack. The more the equipment is exposed to open air the better chance you have of getting some of the heat away from it.

However, if the problem is severe enough you will have to resort to forced air movement, i.e. fans. Now, before you scream, all fans do not have to operate as such a speed that they are audible. High priced studio HVAC systems employ very large fans, vents, and ductwork, but operate at slow speeds – lower air velocity, but still moving lots of air. This principle works equally well in racks.

Mount four or five 4″ to 6″ little box fans in one side of your rack. Make vent holes in the other side. There are fans available that run at slow speeds and are quiet. Some box fans can be run at slower speeds by using lower voltages. Obtaining these lower voltages sometimes requires the creative use of a power supply from some other source (how about that one off the old fax machine that died two years ago?). There are a variety of resources if you are creative. Set the fans up so they will suck air from the inside to the outside. This will create cross ventilation inside the rack. You will be amazed at what a small amount of forced air circulation like this will do.

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