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. 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.
It just looks like it would restrict airflow, and create turbulence. But I'm no expert, and I might be missing something. Sorry. Mighty fine model though .
I agree, mufflers in car exhausts have a series of offset baffles rather than a series of fins. Also, rather than cover the fins/baffles in sound absorbing materials, try lining the sides of the muffler instead - and far as sound absorption goes, you may even get some mileage with a furry material rather than the solid stuff... Let us know how you get on
If you want to absorb all sound from the inside of a computer try making the internals of the computer a little spikey - I can't remember the name of the technique - but if you watch the film Armageddon, the inverviews with the crew in that pointy uncomfortable room as Steve 'Bucktooth' Buschmi says.
I would think the fins would not really baffle the sound as much as create a slight whistling, hissing or whooshing noise. Mufflers are really baffling engine noise not the actual exhaust, So in essence your design wouldn't really be effective.
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.
The screensavers made a silent computer before, and they made fan mufflers by making a small foam box, and putting several foam walls, attached to opposite sides. They then glued little bits of the foam on the walls to scatter the sound a little.
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: Thanks!!
Nice images I like the tubular muffler design. The first one wasn’t bad the tubular on should work better. I know that a car muffler uses both fins and tubular shapes so perhaps you should use both. Perhaps a triangular shape (fan) > the > at approx 45 degrees will bounce the sound back to the fan and allow the air to escape around it and into the first box. Then use you tubular design to baffle the sound. Lining the boxes with textured foam /\/\/\/\/\/\/\ will also help, Both by disrupting the sound and preventing the wall of the box from resonating. They look modular so grommet the sections to that each one is floating from the other. and Grommet you fans as well. also to save space put the two modualr boxes on top of you main box....if it fits into you design of course!
a quick question, ur doing it to make it quiet obviously, but why have u got water and vapochill? why not passively cool the GPU?
Because I have the water setup...... And I like a challenge. A silent PC with both a Vapochill and water cooling system in one spacious case seems like a challenge. I like to design these things - I like it even more to build it!!
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 Case/COMT.jpg http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a326/pswart/Computer Case/COMF.jpg http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a326/pswart/Computer Case/COMB.jpg
u could try using the mic on your computer to record the sound and then play back the 180 degree wave (the inverse) to cancel the noise. the sound waves hit each other and cancel out. Same things the Bose noise canceling headphones work i think. this could work in theory right?
in theory, yes, in practice, no. The timing must be pretty exact, and the amplitude must also be the same.
smilodan is right, at my house I had electrical engineer who had this as his senior project. Its a tough cookie to crack. THey do have those redicously priced headphones that supposedly do this but I've never had the chance to try them. The tubular design would definately Up the static pressure. IMO it wouldn't be worth it in that the fans would be working a lot harder to move the air. so not only would it lead to higher temps the higher the static pressure the louder the fans. I think a very simple short tube design with sound insolation would work. Maybe with fans in the 7-9V range you would never hear them
2 things: the sound cancellation wouldnt work, unless you had the speakers positioned the same distance from you as the object that made the noise (or somehow timed it correctly). if you're trying to stop the sound from getting outside the case, is it necessary to have mufflers on both sides of the radiator enclosure? surely you'd only need a muffler on the external side?
The sound cancellation would work but not very well for an object in the room. The entire room would need to be done. And depending on the Frequency of the noise and the power of the reversal system, you might not be able to hear your self talk. They use it on high-end cars to completely negate the engine and road noise. So yes it is possible but wont be easy as pie. Mic ---( amp ----Reversal ---Amp)----speakers Or just a tube with a 90 elbow in it lined w/ “dynamat” or something like it. with a curved 45 end cap == >| with a gap for the air. The 45 will bounce the sound back in Max air flow and noise scattering. If size is not a problem two layers of drywall on the box will do a good job too. mass = less vibration.
When you look at a sound dampening box for computers, they are usually covered in foam on the inside and then there is one of the previously described baffle boxes on the output side. The foam is one layer asphalt plate with foam on top (the asphalt plate is heavy and slightly flexible, it blocks high frequency noise. In this box the plates were actually lead cardboard plates, but i believe those are banned now because of the lead.
Umm. Yeah, bitumen will block higher frequencies, however, in this case the foam is the one doing the trick (presuming the material is porous). The bitumen will block the noise but, when used alone; as it does not have any sound absorbing abilities whatsoever (at least not fot higher frequencies), all it does is bounce the sound forward, creating a situation much like optic-fiber; sound travels effortlessly, bouncing from wall to wall. The actual function in this case, for bitumen, is to increase the mass of the wall it is on, thus dampening the mechanical resonations. The foam stuff does all the hard work, absorbing the higher frequencies. The foam in the inside of the box has two functions: 1) making the life of mechanical resonations harder 2) absorbing high frequency noise
