I have been lurking for a few weeks and I am ready to start m first home pj.

I am about to buy the 15" mega kit and a westinghouse lcm-15v5 monitor.

I am brainstorming about the design of the box and I want to know if you veterans
think my cooling idea will work or not. What I basically want to do is create a sealed
chamber for the bulb with 1/2" glass. I am wanting to design a push/pull fan setup in
the bulb chamber with two 120mm fans mounted in pvc pipes. One fan will pull fresh
air into the box, and one will pull hot air out of the box.

I want to mount the fans inside 5" pvc to make them more efficient. The pvc pipes
will have a 90 degree elbow and will be placed in the two top corners at the back of
the box. I hope to have enough room between them to mount the ballast and power
supply for the fans. This will keep the electronics away from the heat of the bulb.

I dont care about the size of my box, but I want to keep it cool and have little to no
light leakage. I think the pipes will help with the light leakage if they are painted with
ultraflat black.

To help keep the lcd cool, I also plan to cut a slot with fins into the box right under the
lcd panel and have a smaller fan at the front of the box possible with a tube as well.
Here is a pic below.

EDIT: Just to be clear, there will be a seperate chamber for the pvc pipes. there will be
just two round holes for the pvc to enter the bulb chamber.

I like the idea and I think it could work.

I'm no expert, but I've spent quite a bit of time fooling around with cooling solution ideas.

I would say the only potential flaw is that the intake and exhaust openings on the outside of the PJ are too close together. You don't want the hot exhaust getting sucked back in.

I was going to do something like yours with the PVC pipes running along the rear of my PJ. What I would recommed to you is that you think about how you could more effectively use convection, since the heat from that bulb is naturally going to cause the air to rise. If you go with the flow, you can move a lot more air with the same amount of fan power.

What about an intake at the bottom of the light box, with an exhaust at the top. You could use a hood like those designed to wisk away fumes over a stove. The PVC could then carry away that hot air to an exhaust location of your choice.

Good luck!

Dave

DaveT,

I thought about having the intake on the bottom, and the exhaust on top to make use of convection.
How about this???

How about this design for cooling. The same principle, but with mdf
ducts instead of pvc tubes. I did this in google sketch and the dimensions
are to scale. The same principle is in effect with air being pulled out of
the box by the top fan, and air being pulled into the box by th bottom
fan in a sealed chamber for the bulb. Then there is another chamber
for the lcd screen with a fan on top to draw air up through the opening
in the bottom. I am trying to minimize light pollution out of the box and
I am still thinking of how to design the air exhaust on the top of the box.