[stephsteph100]

I am at a slight impass as I cannot deal with the noise of my in-room equipment rack. Right now I have 2 120mm fans in the cabinet (one pushing and one pulling) I was going to vent it into the next room because it is the gym area and sound isolation was not as big of a concern. Is there a way that I soften the volume of these fans? My other idea is to use a 4" or 5" or 6" in-duct fan to draw air through the cabinet. I would run a minimum of 10 feet with as many bends as possible and just vent into the gym. I have plenty of room as the theater was framed with a 2x4 wall on the inside and a 2x6 wall on the outside. I would rather not rip up the adjoining gym wall if I do not have to. There is so much sound junk in there......fiberglass.....rubber....3 layers of drywall....etc.... However, if people here think that the sound would not be very intrusive inside the theater.....it will be done right away. Included some pics for reference.... Lastly the gym is also a split level away......below the chair rail in the theater (wall next to the gym) is just concrete and dirt. Oh these fans are suppose to be only 27 DB......hahah....I have an echo box!


TIA

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...hreadid=456766

 

[stephsteph100]

another

 

[stephsteph100]

another pic

 

[stephsteph100]

one more

 

[stephsteph100]

last one

 

[bapenguin]

A few things. Try getting a Panaflo or Vantec Stealth. These fans are much quieter.


Mount it using the rubber fan silencers. Something like this: http://www.frozencpu.com/cgi-bin/frozencpu/fss-04.html


You might need to make your hole a little bigger to support it. Also, I'm not sure if they are screwed in or not, but using rubber washers between the screws and the fan/casing helps. Good luck!

 

[PAP]

Are these 110v fans or 12V? If the latter, you can usually run them at 7v or lower with significantly less noise. Also, some fans are dramatically lower noise than others.


What -kind- of noise are you hearing? Vibration? Air whistling? Bearing noise? Can you damp the noise by pushing on the cabinet near the fan?


Nice cabinet work by the way!

 

[stephsteph100]

thanks....


a rubber gasket might be a very good idea. I made a jig for the fans so they are just sitting in the hole....exact fit, nothing holding it in.


they are 12v computer fans. I rigged a micro power supply to run them. I believe I hear the bearing noise and when I first hooked up the power supply...maybe I tapped into a lower volt transformer because they were running slower. I don't know enough about computers to say.


These fans are suppose to be as quiet as they come. However even when I have them out of the holes they still seem very loud. Tried the in duct fan but they are louder by 5 db, but not as annoying in tone.


I threw a couple rolls of fiberglass in the cabinet just in case the sound will decrease when the empty space is gone.....no such luck!


how else can I cool the cabinet? Still trying a way with the in duct fans.


thanks

 

[atlantar6]

I was at Home Depot the other day and they had a very quiet bathroom fan. They also had some very loud ones, noticibly different. I'm going with a quiet one and a 4" tube to vent it out. I'm not getting a bottom fan because if you suck air out the top, it's got to come from somewhere, and that will be the bottom of the cabinet.


Every PC fan I've ever heard has been very loud.

 

[PAP]

I would try one of these first - I've used them on my PCs lots of times and you can dial the speed of your fan and really cut back noise.


You could also use one of the temperature sensitive models like this .


And make sure you mount your fan to the wood via a small rubber grommet - makes a huge difference compared to direct mounting. Try a resource like silentpc.com for some suggestions.


Bapenguin has some good suggestions on fan types - I've used some that were supposed to be "quiet" and aren't. Again the silentpc resources are great for fan reviews. You want a big fan (120mm) and you want to run it as slow as you can.