Entertainment Center Getting Closer

Last night I officially completed the second of three phases in creating our massive entertainment center. Although the side units were installed almost six months ago, it's taken "some time" to apply all of the details.

We finally moved the home theater components into their custom area (complete with slide-out shelf) a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately, after a few days, we had a satellite receiver over-heating issue in the closed cabinet. So, the door had to come back off while I came up with a cool solution. I ended up ordering an 80mm fan unit from coolerguys.com. Last night, I used my brand-new 3.25" hole saw to a) drill a massive hole into my masterpiece and b) beat the living tar out of my wrist (for those who have used large-bore hole saws in a cramped space, you know what I'm talking about). I vented the fan to the empty area behind the center unit, so you can't see the fan on the outside of the unit anywhere.

In the end, the fan, in combination with some homemade component spacers, keeps the temperature directly above our receiver slightly cooler than it was with no fan and no door. Mission accomplished! And, Ethan and I got to play with the thermocouple for my multimeter.

Here are a couple of pictures:

New Right Unit

Full entertainment center (thus far)

Next, I will begin work on the book units that will fill the final 18" on each end. Hopefully, these will require less than the 9 months I've been working on the side units. Here's a snapshot of the prep work I did with Google Sketchup.

Sketchup drawing of new book unit to be built