Building an Iso Box for Computer & Interfaces

[Andi Rauscher]

Hey all!

I just moved my studio to a new place an cannot have a separate machine room any more.

So I have Computers and Interfaces etc in the same room, and have to get rid of the noise.

Attached you can find my first very basic sketch of what I am planning to do.

It will be built out of wood, with 2 regular windows in front and rear, one for each side.

Inside there will be no wall between the two 19" racks, it will be one big space inside.
The external hard drives on top left will sit on a shelf, and there will be a shelf above the UPS on the right side.
These shelves will have either plenty of room in the front and back for airflow or will be a simple grille to have air move thru it.



I have 2 main questions at the moment:

will the air inlet and outlet work the way I planned it? It is basically a lying U under and above the Racks. the inside of these and I guess the inside of the box will be fitted with foam.

on page 2 you can get the idea, the blue is the cold air in and red is the hot air out.

second question:
should I have fans on the inlet AND outlet, or would it be enough to have fans on the outlet only?

I guess moving the hot air out should be enough????

The inlets and outlets will be across the whole thing, so they should be wide enough....

any input, tips and ideas are welcome!!!

Cheers,
Andi

[Andi Rauscher]

for your convinience I made 2 jpgs, so you dont have to download the PDF...
and yes, please ignore all the german in the pdf, these are just my notes...

[Andi Rauscher]

also,

one more question:

which kind of fan would you use?

http://www.pimpmysound.com/images/pr...ges/1971_0.jpg

or

http://193.196.117.23/projekte/WS05-...er/luefter.jpg


???

sorry, I don´t know the english words for those types....

[DanDan]

That looks like a lot of heat.
Fans at the cold air intake. The cylinder fans are quieter generally.
The inner surfaces need to be covered in good acoustic foam or fibre say 50mm. You can use perforated metal to contain the fibre.
Take a look at some of the commercial products for ideas. Keoda. There are fan control systems which sense the temperature and have alarms in case of failure.
::: Zalman, leading the world of Quiet Computing Solutions :::

Good luck with it.
DD

[Andi Rauscher]

Originally Posted by DanDan

That looks like a lot of heat.
Fans at the cold air intake. The cylinder fans are quieter generally.
The inner surfaces need to be covered in good acoustic foam or fibre say 50mm. You can use perforated metal to contain the fibre.
Take a look at some of the commercial products for ideas. Keoda. There are fan control systems which sense the temperature and have alarms in case of failure.
::: Zalman, leading the world of Quiet Computing Solutions :::

Good luck with it.
DD

Hi DanDan,

thanks for your reply!

why would you suggest to have the fans at the cold air intake?

my feeling was, that bringing the hot air out was more important than bringing cold air in, since it would create a vacuum when I suck out the air, and cold air would come in by itself.....


you also would prefer the cylinder fans?
I am not shure if they are powerful enough, I have no experience with them.
I thought about putting around 5 fans per "rack side" next to each other, and having a dimmer make them run slower....

I would also put in a wireless thermometer, to see what happens inside....

thanks for all your input, I wonder if anybody else has experience with these heat things, and would chime in?

have a nice day, everybody!!

[fitZ]

will the air inlet and outlet work the way I planned it?

No. Here is why. You don't have any ductwork or plenums connecting the computer cases at their supply and exhaust locations. This suggests that although you are creating negative pressure within the enclosure, the exhaust and intake fans within the computers them self are not being allowed to do the job they were intended for. The computer exhaust fans are simply sending hot air into the same airspace as the computer supply fans are pulling air in from. This is the whole point of connecting supply ductwork to the case at the input side, and another to the exhaust so the hot air doesn't mix with the cooler air supply with the case.

Here is what I am building at the moment. Note the air supply plenums, which in this case is exactly opposite the norm, are at the rear, and are directly isolated from the exhaust air within the enclosure. This ensures the CPU and other components recieve a cool supply of air that is not tainted by hot air entering the same path. At least...that's the theory. However, I've already tested my first computer and it works MAHVALOUS DAHLING!

you also would prefer the cylinder fans?
I am not shure if they are powerful enough, I have no experience with them.

As to the fans, I use both types. For the supply side, I have Scythe Mugen 2 Rev. B CPU coolers with 2 Axial fans in a Push Pull arrangement, and the Pull fan is enclosed within a short Duct from the Supply plenum on the back of the computer case, to ensure it isn't pulling hot air from within the computer case itself. The GPU is also fed via the plenum, and the Hardrives each have their own small axial fans within the drive cage enclosures.

For the exhaust, I chose to use a very large, although extremely quiet, 120v Crossflow fan, which creates a negative pressure via it's 240 CFM capacity. As you can see, the fans exhaust is delivered to the room via another plenum with 2 90 degree bends. What these pictures don't show, are modifications to the design which are built in silencers, and bell shaped exit profiles, which I learned from an online HVAC forum member.

Anyway, hope that helps define some areas of improvement that you may consider in your design. Mine are almost finished and will post pictures later on.






One other thing. I had to buy 2 identical Thermaltake computer cases, that I've extensively modded to make them work within my design parameters. So far, everything seems to be working as planned. Other things I considered are...the cases rest on decoupled drawer guides, the enclosure is lined with OC 703 rigid fiberglass, and the computer case panels are lined with Acoustic Dampening material.



You can see more of it here:
For the guy who asked about soundproofing a computer...
fitZ

[mhch]

I built a sound proofing computer box, containing a printer, misc accessories in drawers, and a separate space to install my laptop and its docking extension to which all peripherals are connected.

The laptop isn't that noisy, but still its fan and HDD can be heard if close enough, so I decided to sound proof it a bit inside this separate space, which is closed except the back of it, and contains no fans beyond the one of the laptop

What you wrote made me think it would be better to have some sort of separation within that laptop space, between the hot air output and the fresh air intake going to the laptop. That won't be too elaborate, but at least fresh air won't be mixed with hot air coming from the laptop

[fitZ]

and a separate space to install my laptop and its docking extension to which all peripherals are connected.

Hey mhch, I don't use a laptop so I didn't know there are "docking" units for them. Exactly what is it for? Is it a Mac or a PC? Just curious as I'd been thinking about getting a Laptop. But lately...I'm thinking an iPad or the PC version. I've always used PC's as I was a long term Autocad detailer, and all business/Cad stuff was for PC's only. Besides, I absolutely abhor a company who restricts all extra stuff to their brand. It really pisses me off. Although, I understand why Apple does it. But now, with all the iphone/ipad/itunes and i this and i that, geeezus, people are completely subservient to apple. Before you know it, you'll have to download an app to use your toilet.

Ok...enough rant.

[mhch]

Docking Station or Port Replicator are laptop accessories used to quickly connect a laptop to a bunch of external devices like multiple displays, fulls size keyboard, printer, external disk, whatever.

The big advantage is that there is no need to plug/unplug all the devices into/from the laptop. Put another way, in between the laptop and the replicator, there is a single bus connector which does all that work at once.

The one I use with my Dell Latitude laptop is the following

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&cs=19&sku=430-3113&baynote_bnrank=0&baynote_irrank=0&~ck=baynoteSearch

I can connect two 1920x1080 displays to it and when laptop is connected, the laptop LCD is disabled and all the video goes to these external displays. Very convenient when working at home, while still being able to use the laptop in a standalone way when not at home.

[mhch]

I don't like closed computer too.

In fact, I hacked my Dell laptop by replacing the CD/DVD drive by a large 2nd HDD, and I replaced the original single HDD by a fast SSD (Solid State Disk).

As a result, the laptop is very fast, boot time is a few ten seconds instead of several minutes and software load/ start is extremely quick

Can't do that when using an Apple beast !!

[dbjp]

Originally Posted by mhch

I don't like closed computer too.

In fact, I hacked my Dell laptop by replacing the CD/DVD drive by a large 2nd HDD, and I replaced the original single HDD by a fast SSD (Solid State Disk).

As a result, the laptop is very fast, boot time is a few ten seconds instead of several minutes and software load/ start is extremely quick

Can't do that when using an Apple beast !!

?
Just recently installed a SSD as a main drive and took the optical drive out and replaced it with a second 1TB HD on a couple of Macbook Pro's.
This has been possible for years.

[mhch]

Originally Posted by dbjp

?
Just recently installed a SSD as a main drive and took the optical drive out and replaced it with a second 1TB HD on a couple of Macbook Pro's.
This has been possible for years.

Did you do that buying Apple marketed extension parts or on your own getting what you liked best on the computer part market ?

I reckon replacing HD by a SSD or another HD isn't too difficult since these use standard form factors and standard connectors, but this may not be the case for the optical drive ...

[dbjp]

Originally Posted by mhch

Did you do that buying Apple marketed extension parts or on your own getting what you liked best on the computer part market ?

I reckon replacing HD by a SSD or another HD isn't too difficult since these use standard form factors and standard connectors, but this may not be the case for the optical drive ...

All non-Apple related HD's. The optical drive is just a serial ata port. No different to the HD compartment. I got a third party mount so that the HD would fit snuggly into the optical drive area and it's done. The third party mount would also come with a little optical drive USB case so the DVD drive doesn't get wasted either.