Amp Cooling

[VY2ENJOY]

G'Day All

I am wanting to build a false floor in the back of my VY wagon to mount 2 amps under, 1 x 4ch for the door speakers and 1 x mono for 1 (or 2 depending on room) 10 inch sub/s. My question is how much airflow is needed to keep amps from over heating? I only want to make the floor high enough to fit the amps in (no more than 10 cm high but hopefully lower depending on the height of the amps), I havent bought the amps yet so I am open to suggestions if some brands dont run as hot as others . I will insulate the bottom (to stop heat coming up through the floor) and was thinking on having a bit of perspex on top of the amps and covering the rest of the top in carpet (with a bit of carpet I can lay over the perspex when I have something in the cargo area). I have seen people using little computer fans to pull air out from boxed areas which have amps in the but I dont know how good theses are (I can put a row of these in at one end but I think the noise would piss me off to much!). Can anyone help with some advice on this subject?.

Sorry for the long winded thread.

Cheers

[dephilile]

My JBL amps don’t run hot at all. I also recall 12voltking saying that the amps from jaycar run pretty cool also.

I probably wouldn’t bother putting insulation on the bottom because I don’t think heat coming up through the floor would be much of an issue. If anything I think the insulation would stop the heat escaping.

Have you thought of drilling some small ventilation holes in the Perspex? Possibly make them into a pattern. If you have access to a CNC milling machine u could do some really cool stuff.

Make sure you post pictures when you finish

[darb]

well in my VR i got a 1200watt amp and it had over heating problems, so i got 2xCPU fans made 2 holes into my amp and hooked them on and ever since i havn't had a problem (one is an intake fan for cold air and an outtake fan for the hot air) work a charm

[jds303]

if you do have problems, hook up some 12V fans and direct the air flow over the heatsink/s.

[Tasmaniak]

Yup, if you want to make holes in the false floor certainly do so. I have a tendency to run two 12Volt fans with a high dfm rate. They aren't that noisy when you have them in the trunk even if it is a wagon. I never noticed them running in my wagon and I had a small wagon... If you feel it is an issue, run four. Two at either end and at one end, reverse the polarity on the fans so that they spin the opposite way...that way, one end will force air into the enclosure, and the other two will suck the air back out.

This way you keep a constant flow of air in the enclosure. Try to mount your amps with heatsink fink running the same way, then mount the fans at either end so the air flow runs WITH the fins and not against.

[Tasmaniak]

erm I meant high CFM rate...

CFM = Cubic Feet per Minute

[Patrio7]

i dont think reversing polarity will work on pc fans [whick can be picked up cheap from jaycar or dicko's

but simply flipping them works a treat, pc fans are normally mountable either way to allow them to be used for in or outtake

[Tasmaniak]

Polarity reversal does work and so does flipping them over! I just generally suggest swapping reversal because some of them have a badge on them that some people want to hide. If it's no problems or the badges aren't there then choose your method.