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EricHiggin on 21 December 2019
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Pemalite said:
EricHiggin said:

Could be 2X (120mm?) axial fans on the base and top. Enough for reasonable cooling and temps, but positioned horizontally inside to blow air down instead of up.

From a PC perspective it would make sense to have a fan on the bottom pushing air and a fan on top pulling air, aka. "Push-Pull" fan configuration.

That would then make it like a wind tunnel... And is generally the preferred way you set up say... A PC heatsink fan configuration.

EricHiggin said:

Hot air only rises naturally because cooler air is naturally higher up, when it's calm. If you create a vacuum/pressure, pushing cooler air through, the heat will go wherever the cool air passing by does. If they point the fans down, the cool air will come in from the top and hot air will go out the bottom. By the time that exhausted air reaches the top again, it would likely be room temp, so no big deal. This way, even if the floor is dirty around the console, it will clean it for you by blowing it away instead of sucking it up.

Hot air generally rises because of thermal expansion.

I.E. When you warm a gas (I.E. The air) that gas then expands and becomes lighter overall. - That then rises up and cooler denser air sinks down.

Push pull would likely be preferred yes, but more so if the fans were blowing down. If they are blowing up, sucking from the base, depending on how much pressure differential they are creating, and how close the base of the console sits to the floor, dust could certainly be an issue.

Thermal expansion, yes. As the air goes up it deals with less pressure and loses energy, making it cooler. When it's windy out though, depending on how windy, the hot air will mostly go sideways, but also up. The difference is an open space is quite a bit different than an enclosed, if not sealed space. Not to mention controlled vs constant variation. An enclosed controlled console, in an enclosed controlled building, with fans blowing down through the console, will receive little to no thermal expansion resistance. The entire room will have roughly the same air pressure and temp, so forcing air down though the console would be easy, depending on how the internals are laid out.