Could my media center setup catch fire?

[Raptor_Fawr]

As title say, I am building a tower-like structure that is made out of wood. The components are mounted with those screws that makes the motherboard not touch the wood directly. The graphic card and the hard drive are mounted in a similar fashion.

Everything works perfectly and I'm planning to cover this wooden monster with a perforated aluminium plate (it will look like a grater but the airflow will be good).

My only concern is that the wood could eventually catch fire.

In the picture it's the unfinished project, I need a couple more things before taking away the grey tape, but it will come off easily once it's over

[WereCatf]

5 minutes ago, Raptor_Fawr said:

My only concern is that the wood could eventually catch fire.

In normal operation, no. You need a lot more heat than any of the components can output in order to ignite wood. That said, if some component, like e.g. the PSU, malfunctioned and caught on fire, then your wooden case could become a bonfire.

[Raptor_Fawr]

7 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

In normal operation, no. You need a lot more heat than any of the components can output in order to ignite wood. That said, if some component, like e.g. the PSU, malfunctioned and caught on fire, then your wooden case could become a bonfire.

Thanks, that's what I thought too.

I should be safe then

[TheBean]

to make wood catch fire with electricity you need A LOT of voltage. a PSU only supplies 12V of power. 

it will not catch fire. 

 

For legal and safety purposes, use wood at your own discretion. 

 

Edit: you need 2000+ volts to ignite wood or 250 degrees Celsius.

Edited April 2, 2020 by Saksham

[TheBean]

8 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

You need a lot more heat than any of the components can output in order to ignite wood

do you mean voltage? or like the heat from a GPU?

 

in any case, neither are enough

[WereCatf]

1 minute ago, Saksham said:

do you mean voltage? or like the heat from a GPU?

No, I would've said voltage if I meant voltage.

[Letgomyleghoe]

24 minutes ago, Saksham said:

to make wood catch fire with electricity you need A LOT of voltage. a PSU only supplies 12V of power. 

it will not catch fire. 

 

For legal and safety purposes, use wood at your own discretion. 

 

Edit: you need 2000+ volts to ignite wood or 250 degrees Celsius.

It was also more of a “if the power supply catches fire” not burning it with electricity 

[artuc]

On 4/2/2020 at 9:19 AM, Saksham said:

to make wood catch fire with electricity you need A LOT of voltage. a PSU only supplies 12V of power. 

it will not catch fire. 

 

For legal and safety purposes, use wood at your own discretion. 

 

Edit: you need 2000+ volts to ignite wood or 250 degrees Celsius.

 

It's not about voltage it's energy.

 

ELV can start fires. Also many of the components if failing catastrophically can cause a fire.

 

Saw a DVD burner catch fire and the plastic caught and melted, if that was in a wood case the case would have easily gone up as well.

 

 

[Raptor_Fawr]

As an info for future reference, I've used this rig extensively and it works, it didn't catch fire yet. 

 

But I am not satisfied with the size of it so I'm gonna rework the whole thing and I'll get a mini itx board instead, so I thibk I will not use wood anymore