A Fan Muffler Design

[pswart]

Hello,

I am designing a quiet case to hold both a Vapochill XE II unit and watercooling for the chipset and GPU. This is not going to be a small case - in fact it's going to be huge.

First things first - Fan Mufflers. Below a few pictures.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a326/pswart/Muffler3.jpg

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a326/pswart/Muffler2.jpg

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a326/pswart/Muffler1.jpg

The idea is to cover the slats with a thin sound absorbing material to reduce sound but not to restrict airflow to much.

Any coments on the design welcome.

Thanks.

[BlueAqua]

Wow, looks like quite the design. Looks like a lot of effort was put into those drawings.

[Ugly n Grey]

baffle design is effective in muffling noise, but you end up restricting airflow...every time.... if you put an insulated shroud sticking out only a few inches from a fan, noise will drop a lot without airflow restriction....then again some fans are just quieter than others...

P.S. nice to see the drawings :) easy to see what you are thinking

[craig588]

What about turbulence? I know nothing about sound dampening though, it's probably fine.

[pswart]

Thanks for all the replies.

I have taken the design further - remember I said in the beginning this is going to be a big case.....

The picture below shows mufflers with reduced number of slats and the water-cooling radiator suspended on vibration absorbing material - the picture does not actually show this nor the fan's. You will have to use your imagination.

The "box" is covered in a sound absorbing material and the thickness of this will ultimately determine the size of the box.

The inside of the mufflers and the slats will also be covered with thinner sound dampening material.

From all your replies it seems that I will have to build this and test the various alternatives.

PS. I like the simplicity of the Silverstone PPo2 PSU muffler.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a326/pswart/Box.jpg

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a326/pswart/Box1.jpg

[pswart]

Another design approach based on a mod I saw on silentpcreview.com.

This is a muffler in the correct sense of the word.

I would appreciate your thoughts on the sound absorption and airflow characteristics of this design over the previously mentioned ones.

As far as layout is concerned these are just concepts, once I have something that seems ok I will work on the best possible layout to be both effective and save space. Any ideas welcome!!

Here it goes:

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a326/pswart/DG2.jpg

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a326/pswart/DP2.jpg

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a326/pswart/DS2.jpg

Thanks!!

[n00b 0f l337]

Or you can double stack some fan filters, it relaly does lower noise.

[pswart]

Hi,

Below some more sketches - this time of the complete case design idea.

The top "muffler unit" will house the vapochill and the bottom one the water cooling setup.

The hard disk unit and the PSU still poses a problem as to how to incorporate them into the silent theme.

Airflow over the mother board is also something I still need to think on.

The cable length from the mother board to the optical and other drives also concerns me.

Any suggestions welcome!!

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a326/pswart/Computer%20Case/COMT.jpg

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a326/pswart/Computer%20Case/COMF.jpg

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a326/pswart/Computer%20Case/COMB.jpg

[gert_bobo]

that's looking freaking nice got some good skillz keep us updated
gonna be one big case but i like that ^^
Greetz Gert AkA B0B0