So ever since I built my theater in 2014, I have struggled with one thing above all else.

Cooling.

I did a year worth of research into the theater build, itself prior to construction, the room is perfect sonically, with diffusers and bass traps and sound treatments on all my first reflection points.

But one thing no one ever spoke about on AVS Forum was the need for cooling in a AV room.

So it has been a constant battle over the last 5 years. Without any cooling at all, my Rotel amps would hit over 100 degrees and shut off channels to preserve themselves.

I tried an in room air conditioner that was both loud and added about 50 a month to my electric bill.

I tried a bathroom exhaust fan and tried piping the fan into the house cold air return, with the mindset of using the HRV to suck all the warm air out of the house, only to result in all the cold air return vents pumping out hot air.

So it was not til January of this year that I come across the slim AC Infinity Aircom T8’s that are meant to sit on top of your gear and suck air from under them, and vent it out the back. They also make an iteration that will vent out the front if you prefer.

The devices run about $110 on amazon.ca and they, in conjunction with a AC Infinity Cloudline T6 they have changed my room temp by close to 20 degrees cooler.

I have installed one on each of my 3 amplifiers, as well as my receiver.

They have all sorts of bells and whistles for automated cooling.

The way I have mine set is they come on via power regulated outlet, that when the amps power up, they all switch on as well, so they are not sucking up power for no reason.

But they have the ability to do temperature monitoring to switch on automatically if your gear gets too hot. They have a built in alarm that you can set via a high temp mark.

They also have 6 fan speeds, which you can either set manually, or allow the device to regulate on its own via the temp sensor. I personally avoid this one and opted to have them run at about 80% speed all the time, this lets my gear stay between the 80-85 degree mark almost constantly.

They also have a fault alarm in the event that they malfunction, which is great if you are like me and have a closed room where your AV equipment resides.

Lastly they can be linked together with up to 6 other devices and controlled with one master interface. Personally I didn’t see the point, I really want them to all function independently.

To top it all off, once the heat is blow from the components out the back of the rack, that is where the AC Infinity Cloudline comes into play. It is at head level and sucks like a vacuum on steroids, yet does so near silently.

It snags all the heat coming out and blows it out of the AV room through an exhaust port I cut in for the air conditioning unit I used years ago.

This unit I leave on 24/7 as the room still holds a lot of other equipment, from the home automation, to my media server and home theater PC, all of which never turn off. So it still gets steamy if the door is closed and it is not vented.

This unit has a temp probe of its own, and a head unit that can control 2 Cloudline devices at one time if needed.

This one I do leave on smart monitoring though, as it can judge bu room temp how fast to run the fan if needed.

Prior to installing these devices I had to keep my cabinet full of PC fans and have the door open 100% for it to remain in the low 90s temp wise.

Now with the compliment of AC devices, the room remains closed and is about 80 on most days now.

A pure win in my books.

All told it was a $600 endeavor to come up with this solution, but well worth the cash in my opinion.

It is worth mentioning there is also a dumb variety of the AC Infinity series as well for a lot less money, these devices work exactly the same, but have no programming like temp gauges and such, they are straight on and off devices. So if you are strapped for cash and have a heat issue, there is an alternative as well.

 

 

 

 

So I have been into photography for year now, since I was a child actually, but never in a serious way, more like hardcore casual.

I have had cameras over my lifetime and then long periods with them as well.

I jumped back in last year when I snagged a Nikon D5600 and took some great shots, but my wife and I wanted to get into portraits and nature photography more like when we are on vacation, and I was looking for a good replacement for my 10 year old HD Sony Camcorder for recording my youtube unboxing vids.

So I dove in and went to the top of the line Nikon D850, second only to their new mirror-less line which I honestly did not know enough about to consider a viable option to purchase.

But through a lot of reading, I must admit I was pretty skeptical I was a good enough photographer to even entertain something like the D850. I know a lot about taking great shots compositionally, but when it comes to the heart and soul of F-stops, aperture, ISO, etc, I am admittedly pretty clueless, which was what made the D5600 so great, it was a high end entry level camera, it holds you hand and makes picture taking easy without having to know much.

So I have spent the last 4 months casually reading up on the minutia of photography and dove into the D850 head long.

This camera is honestly not for the casual photographer, if you are one, it will take outstanding pictures still, but it is serious overkill. But if you are like me, and want to ensure you have the best available to you, even if you may not use 100% of its potential, then the D850 could be what you are looking for.

Out of the box it is a fantastic camera. And it does offer a variety of “auto” modes available to you, this helped my learning by setting things like the ISO to auto, enabled me to play with the f-stops until I got me bearings.

But it has taken me a few months of tweaking to get things like I want them, and to make it user friendly enough that my wife who has zero interest in photography can pick it up off the desk and snap a pic or two if she wants.

This is a testament to the usability of the D850. When someone with no knowledge of photography can take amazing picture with it despite its complex nature.

If you are looking for a full comprehensive review, I highly suggest checking out the folks at Digital Photography, this was the review that sold me on the D850:

https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikon-d850

As much as I would love to give you all a full review like this, I honestly would do this amazing camera an injustice in doing so.

So in all our coming Lepin/Lego reviews you may notice the pics look quite different, this is the reason.

So please let us know in the comments what you think, and don’t forget to check us out on Youtube as well, all vids going forward will be in full 4k.