CabCool 802 Lite Dual 80mm Fan Cooling Kit for Cabinet & Home Theaters

I never write reviews, but I felt compelled to write this review after installing this product. It's whisper quiet, assembles easily, and it does a great job of cooling my A/V cabinet (even though the fan doesn't seem to be pulling/blowing a lot of air). I just lost two A/V components before buying this fan, likely due to heat, so I thought I really should install a fan before I burned out my replacement components. I installed this fan in the back (had to cut a hole in the cabinet), pulling the air out of the back/top of my cabinet. It's a medium-sized cabinet, so I wasn't sure this fan would have the power to do the job -- again, it's so quiet, it just didn't seem like it could make a difference -- but it works great. I've normally had to keep my glass A/V cabinet door open whenever I turn a component on. After installing this fan, just for fun, I turned on all my components, closed the glass door and occasionally checked the internal temp. This fan works so well I can tell no difference in temp between when the components are on or off. Usually if I keep the door closed with components on, the interior of the cabinet turns into a small oven (see note above about replacing my old components). In short, I couldn't be happier with this product. Everything assembled in a few minutes, and the fan is incredibly quiet. Well worth the $$ in order to save a few thousand dollars worth of A/V gear.

We have an entertainment center cabinet that has plenty of space, but is completely enclosed except for the rear access/cable holes. The front of the cabinet has doors with glass panels. When the doors are closed and the receiver and/or PS4 are on, the temperature inside the cabinet gets very hot. For awhile now, we've just made sure to leave the front doors open while we have the equipment on, but with the doors having glass panels, I've always been afraid that one of the kids would run through the living room and trip over the doors and smash the glass and hurt themselves. I was planning on just taking some old PC fans and rigging them up myself, but I saw the CabCool kit on Amazon and thought it would be worth trying since it comes with a mounting panel and because it would save me from having to wire the fans up to a plug. The CabCool 802 ended up being perfect for what I needed. The back panel of our entertainment center cabinet is the tack-on heavy cardboard type. I was hopeful that I'd be able to mount the fan kit on the rear cardboard panel without the fans being too heavy. I'm happy to say that it worked out perfectly. The fans and mounting plate are light enough that I was able to mount them just by cutting a hole in the rear panel with a box knife, and just by using zip ties (which were included) to attach the mounting panel. Once I was done, I fired up the PS4 and the receiver and closed the cabinet doors and left everything running for about an hour. After that, I opened up the cabinet, and with both pieces of equipment still running, it was almost as cool as it normally is when everything is turned off. The fans are also pretty quiet, so unless the front doors are opened and I'm listening for them, I can't hear them at all. I'm very happy with my purchase and would recommend them based on ease of installation and on effectiveness. Update March 29, 2016: I'm still very happy with these fans and highly recommend them, but they are no longer so quiet that I can't hear them. There is definitely a noticeable low drone/humming noise from the fans when everything else is powered off, but it's not enough to bother me.

Like others, I recently purchased this fan and upon receiving it, it did not work. Also like others have reported recently, the issue was easily traced to how the pieces were wired to the Molex plugs (plug-in connectors like found in a computer case for powering the fans). The power transformer was wired to deliver power on two different pins than the fans were wired to receive the power. Hence, the fans did not work when plugged in. However, I contacted the vendor, Coolerguys, and they courteously and promptly resolved the issue, which they said they had recently discovered, by sending me another Molex adapter to plug between the other connectors to correct the wiring error. I received said adapter as promised after a few days and now everything works fine. The fans are very quiet and I thought the fit-and-finish was acceptable; the plate and guards are metal, not plastic. The components on this model do vary in appearance slightly from what is shown in the included "generic" assembly instructions. You might want to peruse the vendor's Web site before making your purchase to see the other models and features available. In particular, there are some with thermostatic controls which this model doesn't have. Overall, I am satisfied with my purchase and the vendor provided very good service to rectify the wiring issue, although I was surprised that there was an issue like this in the first place. The fans or transformer could have been re-wired without too much trouble by the gung-ho do-it-yourselfer, but since I just paid good money for this product and didn't need it immediately, I looked for the vendor to correct the issue which they did at no cost.

Edit 5 Aug 2019: I noticed that the fans weren't running and did some troubleshooting tonight ... as I expected, the power supply gave up the ghost. Didn't have a 5V supply handy, and buying a replacement was going to run $14-$15, so I just bought another 802 for the extra $10. Done and done! And now back to your originally scheduled review ... (I uploaded four images of my installation, which will hopefully help folks understand my description.) My AV equipment is in a cabinet that is built into a false wall in my living room. It has no ventilation so I've had to leave the doors open all the time and it still gets pretty warm in the rear of the cabinet. Enter the CabCool. I read many reviews and selected the 802 Lite. Some assembly is required ... basically, they send you all of the required parts and you get to put it together, which gives the user the flexibility to change the direction of air flow ... the assembly was quick and easy, and the modular plugs made the electrical hook-up a snap (literally). I considered getting the unit that has the temperature sensor, but I didn't think it would matter (i.e., I believe it would be running almost all the time anyway), and if I decide later that I would like it, I can pick up a 3rd party temperature controller for about $20. I installed the unit vertically on the left wall of the enclosure, exhausting the warm air into the space inside the false wall ... the fans straddle the top shelf, with the upper fan pulling from behind the receiver and the lower fan pulling from behind the DVR (the two primary heat generators). As for the air intake, the cabinet doors are naturally offset from the front of the cabinet, providing a small air gap all the way around. In an earlier attempt to allow the space to cool by natural convection, I had added some "bumper" spacers to keep the doors just slightly open, but it didn't work nearly well enough. I may be able to remove the spacers now, but will probably leave them since they really aren't noticeable. As others have noted, the fans are amazingly quiet ... you honestly can't hear them when you're holding them in your hand, so the amount of noise they make when installed will depend on how resonant the mounting surface is. In my case, I could just barely hear them when I plug them in, but not once I closed the cabinet doors. This is a perfect niche product, and was an excellent solution for my situation. Based on this experience I would not hesitate to purchase similar CoolerGuys products.

I recently replaced an entertainment center that had open shelving (no doors or walls around the shelves) with one that was completely enclosed. I knew heat would be a problem with the new cabinets but I had no idea how bad until I put my components in them. I have several units in the entertainment center but the hottest section was the part where I had a Pioneer receiver on one shelf and a Dish DVR on another shelf above it. The DVR was by far the worst. It was VERY hot to the touch and eventually began having problems producing a picture to the television. After I installed these fans, the difference was incredible. The DVR is no longer hot, just slightly warm. My Pioneer receiver does not even feel warm when it is on as it did before. I no longer have to keep my doors open when watching movies/television and do not worry about to much heat frying my units. I actually bought another set of these fans the next day. If you look at the product pictures, another reviewer posted pictures of how he installed his fans. I did mine the exact same way. One fan cools the receiver and the other cools the DVR. The space between the two fans lines up with the the shelf above the receiver/underneath the DVR. I have the fans turned around sucking hot air out of the cabinet. This works because the back of the cabinets have holes for power cords. The fans are able to pull cool air in though these holes. The only negative was that my first kit came with wood screws but came with nothing to put the fans together. I had some small nuts and bolts laying around so this wasn't much of a problem. My second kit came with everything needed and went together in about 5 minutes. I am leaving these fans on 24 hours a day. It's only been about two weeks since I first installed them but there has been no issues so far. If any arise, I will update this review. These fans work exactly as advertised, and I have no problem giving this 5 stars. Highly recommended! **UPDATE March 23, 2012** I have now had the fans running 24 hours a day for nearly 4 months straight without any issues. Also, they are still running just as quiet as they were when I first installed them. I actually have to place my hand in front of each fan to make sure they are still running. These fans have been great!

Worked great for my no frills option to vent my media cabinet. Fans are quite and went together easily. Simply took a few tools, drill and a jigsaw to make a few cuts and I was in business

I have a metal av cart I use to hold all the equipment for our poolside movies, the bluray player, the receiver that powers the speakers (all output jacks on the cart walls so its self contained and self stored) and it always ran really warm even with the cart doors open. Needed something to help increase airflow without having to use a regular fan. I knew they made media cabinet fans but didn't want to spend a lot of money. Came across this fan setup while surfing thru Amazon. Thought I'd give it a shot as it seemed to fit my needs: small, moved air and had everything with it so I didnt have to coddle together parts. Shipped quickly with my Prime membership. Received it quickly, packed well. Parts all bagged nicely. Fans seemed to be of good quality. Nice grills. The fan plate is cut perfectly, finish showed no flaws, all the bolts, screws and nuts were included along with the power supply. Put it all together, I did pull up the website and read the instructions there and watched their videos. My install was a tad bit different then most as I was putting it into a metal cabinet. Cut into the back of the metal cabinet using a template I made based upon the cut out dimensions they provided (7"x3.25"). Fan assembly slipped right in. Instead of the provided screws, I went with some small bolts and nuts I had laying around as I did not want to rip flesh open if anyone reached into the back part of the cabinet and contacted those screws. Bolted it up, plugged the wallwart into the switched outlet of the receiver. Gave power to the cart, (I built in a power strip), turned on the receiver and the fans came on. Nice even speed, good air flow, and you can't hear them when you're away from the cart. No noticeable electrical interference thru the speakers either. First outdoor movie night we had with the newly added fans, after 2 hours, receiver was much more noticeably cooler than ever before. Pretty happy about that. Don't have to worry know about heat damage to my equipment. Looking for a rather decent dual fan setup for the price? Shouldn't have to look further.

Easy to assemble, easy to use. Hardest part for me was to do was the cut out in the back of the cabinet. Updated review............................ As others have mentioned the fans run all the time and are quiet, too quiet. As when they stop you don't notice it and caused a my very expensive receiver to fry. Now have to spend thousands of dollars to replace the receiver and will upgrade my fans to ACInfinity w/ controllers. Going now with cabinet (2) fans plus component cooling (2) fans. Component fans lay on top of receiver and exhaust the air to the rear of the cabinet where the cabinet fans exhaust to outside the cabinet. Maybe fans might be a little noisy, meaning you have air movement within the cabinet, but better that than frying your electronics with some cheap imitations.

Very quiet and moves a lot of air, keeping my home server system with several drives and computer in a cabinet nice and cool.

Purchased this for my sons stereo cabinet. Works great and keeping it nice and cool!

Ordered the wrong product thought I had ordered a cooling pad for my laptop was very diappointed

Totally awesome and does what it's supposed to do, dissipate heat from the entertainment cabinets. Very, very quiet. Highly recommended!

2 years later and still going strong