I was inspired by a post by @matt_garman in the Closet ventilation thread thread from several years back. It motivated me to finally install some exhaust ventilation for my server closet so that I can run with the closet door closed. (You can click the photos below to view them in higher resolution.)
I keep all my equipment in a closet off the downstairs bathroom and I've been leaving the door open to keep things from overheating. The floorplan of my house has the far wall of the network closet in a small alcove next to the door into my garage, which seemed like a great opportunity for a vent. Before I could lose my courage, I cut a big hole in the wall (shown in yellow above).
I thought about just doing some direct wire Noctua fans with a simple speed controller, but after some Googling I stumbled across a cool USB-powered cabinet fan system made by AC Infinity. Amazon pricing looked reasonable so I bought two 140mm fans and their smart fan controller.
The AC Infinity fans are set up to exhaust, but for my use I wanted them to act as intake fans. I had to swap the direction of the fans by unscrewing the frames and turning the fan around to face the other direction. It was a simple process. Then I cut two holes on the closet side of the wall the appropriate size to seat the two fans.
I also poked a hole in between the fans to fit the temperature sensor probe. From inside the closet it looks quite tidy. Then I cut a hole closer to eye level in the closet to mount the smart controller and ran the USB cables down from the fans. Inside the closet:
Finally finished off the install by snaking the power cable down to a power outlet conveniently located in between the same studs on the outside face of the wall. I finished by covering the exhaust with a 24"x6" grill. In the hallway:
Disappointingly, it was way louder than I was anticipating and I was really unhappy by the fan noise. No whine, but there was a fairly loud lower-frequency hum that was annoying. It turned out to be caused by the airflow through the hex-pattern fan grills. Perhaps these are quieter with the fans pushing air instead of pulling air, but the way I had it set up was awful. I popped the fans out of the wall and removed the grills, which significantly reduced the fan noise.
The smart controller is really slick, it will dynamically speed up and slow down the fans as the measured temperature reaches the set threshhold. At the slowest speed the fans are barely audible and at the highest speed it's mostly just the sound of airflow. Now the closet is holding a reasonable temperature even with the door closed. There's more than enough of a gap at the bottom of the door to allow air to flow in to the closet, so I don't think I'll need to add an intake vent.
All told it took a couple hours and had yielded a significant improvement to my office noise level.
All the photos in full res are on Flickr and the parts list is on Amazon.
I keep all my equipment in a closet off the downstairs bathroom and I've been leaving the door open to keep things from overheating. The floorplan of my house has the far wall of the network closet in a small alcove next to the door into my garage, which seemed like a great opportunity for a vent. Before I could lose my courage, I cut a big hole in the wall (shown in yellow above).
I thought about just doing some direct wire Noctua fans with a simple speed controller, but after some Googling I stumbled across a cool USB-powered cabinet fan system made by AC Infinity. Amazon pricing looked reasonable so I bought two 140mm fans and their smart fan controller.
The AC Infinity fans are set up to exhaust, but for my use I wanted them to act as intake fans. I had to swap the direction of the fans by unscrewing the frames and turning the fan around to face the other direction. It was a simple process. Then I cut two holes on the closet side of the wall the appropriate size to seat the two fans.
I also poked a hole in between the fans to fit the temperature sensor probe. From inside the closet it looks quite tidy. Then I cut a hole closer to eye level in the closet to mount the smart controller and ran the USB cables down from the fans. Inside the closet:
Finally finished off the install by snaking the power cable down to a power outlet conveniently located in between the same studs on the outside face of the wall. I finished by covering the exhaust with a 24"x6" grill. In the hallway:
Disappointingly, it was way louder than I was anticipating and I was really unhappy by the fan noise. No whine, but there was a fairly loud lower-frequency hum that was annoying. It turned out to be caused by the airflow through the hex-pattern fan grills. Perhaps these are quieter with the fans pushing air instead of pulling air, but the way I had it set up was awful. I popped the fans out of the wall and removed the grills, which significantly reduced the fan noise.
The smart controller is really slick, it will dynamically speed up and slow down the fans as the measured temperature reaches the set threshhold. At the slowest speed the fans are barely audible and at the highest speed it's mostly just the sound of airflow. Now the closet is holding a reasonable temperature even with the door closed. There's more than enough of a gap at the bottom of the door to allow air to flow in to the closet, so I don't think I'll need to add an intake vent.
All told it took a couple hours and had yielded a significant improvement to my office noise level.
All the photos in full res are on Flickr and the parts list is on Amazon.
