what to use for ducting material?

[DanW]

Hi everyone,

I'm currently using an old cut up calendar for ducting at the moment while I was deciding which would be the best route for the air.
I've now got to the point where I'd like to make it more perminant and look better. Has anyone got any good ideas or suggestions on what materials to use? Or should I just stick with the calendar.

As a side note, the ducting work ridiculously well, it brought the CPU full load temperature down by 15degress whilst the fan was only working at 70%.
I also have to commend the silence of Be Quiet's PSUs, the ATX1.3 450w PSU may be fairly old in these standards but was inaudible on the Dev bench at work in open air, the fans were hardly spinning up. It's also got 3 temperature controlled fan connectors.

I'll post some pictures of the insane ducting later on and whomever the ducting looks most like, thank you, I suppose copying is the best kind of flattery



Thanks in advance,
Dan

[Felger Carbon]

Thin cardboard fastened with duct tape works best. I prefer Ritz to Cheerios.

If your existing calendar duct is the "girlie" variety, you definitely wouldn't want to display it in public. You should send the offending material to me and I'll see to it that it stays out of sight.

As you have already discovered, cardboard (aka "ghetto") ducts work just fine. Are you trying to build a computer that works coolly and quietly, or are you constructing an exhibit for MoMA?

[DanW]

I don't think the case is good enough for an exhibit. For a start the lights on the case both shorted out when they earthed on the case (the computer ran absolutely fine!), the burning smell started, and then followed shortly by smoke!


The calendar is definitely not of the girly kind, for a start she wouldn't had been cut/torn up Sadly it's just an old Uni poster style one.

I've just been playing with it, and with all 5 fans being controlled by the PSU the idle temps have risen to 60 degrees and all I can hear is the 250gb HDD now, which is OK as it spins down when not in use, the other main drive is of course a Samsung SP80. Anoyingly enough it's now quieter than my main rig which is in my sig, heh typical.

I managed to find out what the odd noise was in my case after disconnecting every fan in the system. It was one of the fans controlled my the motherboard. I think eitehr speedfan or the motherboard was to fault there. However that's now fixed, luckly it's only in front of the HDDs so a small ammount of air flow should be enough until the summer comes hopefully (by that point I'll have probably bought the next case for it, and with that, a fan controller)

I should receive the FanMates tomorrow so I'll give them a play with and see if I can lower the temperatures a little more.


cheers for the reply FC

[phartknokr]

After reading the articles about ducting the P180 with styrene I set out to find some styrene. I struck out on that material but found some thin plexiglas at a local hobby shop. I experimented with a few different adhesives finding two that make a solid join in the material.

Testor's model cement is strong but messy. What I found that did work well is CPVC cement. Run the plexiglas across the applicator and press together. Sets in about 10-15 seconds, very solid bond in just a few minutes. Leaves a little bit of purple color on the seam but it is even and light.



I will post more when I do my ducting over the holidays.

[LucIyer]

any idea where one can get CPVC cement? perhaps a hardware store? hobby store?

[phartknokr]

Home Depot would have it.

I had about 4 kinds of PVC cement on the shelf downstairs, most from previous owners. The other 3 kinds were thicker, messier, and not nearly as strong as the purple stuff.

One caveat: Use in well ventilated area and keep the cap on. It's some strong smelling stuff, more so than the other three.

[DanW]

ah v.nice.

How did you bend the plexiglas? Did it require heating or did it just bend?


Thanks,
Dan

[nutball]

I use foam-board. It's easier to work with than plastic (well, plastic of a meaningful thickness at least).

[Bluefront]

From a noise stand-point, it's better to use softer materials for a duct. You get a noise amplification effect when the sides of the duct are rigid.

I use thin aluminum sheets, like roof flashing....then cover the aluminum on both sides with sticky-back felt. It's easy to work with, cuts easily, and holds a shape after bending.

[DanW]

...It's easy to work with, cuts easily, and holds a shape after bending.

yeah that's something that the poster is not very good at doing, I could also make some form of channelling for the excess wires whilst I'm there too...

[cmthomson]

Styrene should be available at any model train shop. If not, the staff will be able to point you, since this the most popular plastic for those insanely elaborate setups you see on the magazine covers.

But as others have said, you can use pretty much any material you're comfortable with. I like styrene primarlily because it is extremely sturdy, nonconductive, and easy to cut and glue. It doesn't pick up static or show scratches like plexiglass.

One popular material is foamboard (a layer of foam sandwiched between two layers of smooth plastic) and tape. It's thicker than styrene, and can't be bent in curves very well, but it is really easy to work with, and very cheap. It's also very light.

Bluefront has built some very attractive ducts using metal and felt. It's easy to cut and bend, and you can build some pretty neat one-piece ducts. However, the metal is conductive and relatively heavy, so it takes more care than cardboard, foamboard or plastic.

[unibomber51]

i use a combination of cork sheets and syrene sheets
i would go for balsa wood for it's sound absorbing properties but it's so brittle

[phartknokr]

How did you bend the plexiglas? Did it require heating or did it just bend?

It's not bent. Those are some scraps I glued at right angles with purple stuff. After cutting the pieces, I removed the ridge that comes with cutting and sanded the straight edge. After the glue set I sanded the corners a little bit to round them and take away any rough edges.

It's true the plexi scratches. But with the choice between opaque styrene or clear plexi, I'm inclined to the clear materials.

Hadn't considered the rigid material amplifying noise , was more interested in how to duct for cooling so I could up the OC and still have it look nice.

I have some foamboard I'm going to experiment with but it's pretty thick.

[RAFH]

I just used some old file folders I had about and some odds and ends of a thicker cardboard. I used a combination of tape, staples and glue. Its not the prettiest setup but I don't spend a lot of time looking inside my rig.

While there's some truth to the echoing effect of smooth hard surfaces, if you induce a bit of curve and/or angle breaks it will relieve what little there is of that. The tradeoff with something soft and bumpy like felt is a much higher friction and much greater collection of dust. I'm more than willing to accept a bit of echo to lose the friction noises and the dust. The dust can be mitigated by having good intake filters.

You can see my efforts in the SOLO Build/Review thread.

[zepper]

I just bought a couple of Sunbeam OCK-B duct kits from Newegg for about $8. each. You can get them with either blue or clear over silver flexible ducting with an assortmnet of adapters and couplers. They were originally about $15. each. It's a bit late now to take advantage of the free shipping promo with PayPal that ended yesterday at the Egg. These work with 70 and 80 mm fans/fan mounts. There is another, generic, duct out there that also has fittings for 92mm fans. My favorite source (Computergate.com) for those appears to have folded, but I've seen them elsewhere.

I would think that furniture-grade vinyl upholstery material would work well with some insulated, solid-copper conductor wire hot-glued inside or outside for shaping.

.bh.