Wallmount rack - top of rack ventilation

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maze

Active Member
Apr 27, 2013
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First off. Dont hate the cable mess - still in the process of fixing the beauty of this all :)

Okay so my home rack sits in a 6m2 room (guess thats around 65 sqft?) in the basement.. problem is, its adjacent to the stairway to the first floor..

GF has started complaining about the noise as the fans turn faster (as she keep closing the door i tell her :) )

Anyways. Theres two 120mm fan holes in the top that i'v installed 2x noctua 120mm industrial ppc's in to remove the heat. Bought some 1u blinders off ebay and installed those.

I ended up going to my local plumber shop and found some 160mm flexible fan ducting and an adapter from square to round (which didnt fit totally, but some silicone sealer to the rescue!)

First problem was how to make sure the two fans put the air into the duct.. so i found an old plastic box and cut it open to fit it inthere, again, sealer to the rescue and it seemed quite good combined with some containers from harddrives and a bit more cardboard to keep the box down.


Next i drilled up the holes into the side of the wall where the adapter sits over the square hole in the wall going out in the stairway.





Almost final result. Im going to somehow put the ducting up under the rack case itself. Just have to figure out how to secure it without having to make the wall into swizz chese :)

- The amount of air comming out is actually quite decent.. I was positively surprised that its drawing as much as it is.
 
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cactus

Moderator
Jan 25, 2011
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Nice, I have done something similar for a rack in a bedroom closest. It has worked well for a few years. I initially used 12v PC fans connected to one of the computers in the rack. Those died and were replaced with 120v fans with a thermal switch for an attic fan.
I am working with a quiet rack right now that will use a AC Infinity inline duct fan to pull the air outside vs the 120mm fans pushing through the duct.
 

Robert Fontaine

Active Member
Jan 9, 2018
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Are you generating that much heat or is the sound of jet fighter simply the result of original server fans?

I have found that wife friendly hardware is much easier to bring into the house although it tend to be challenging to get cheap, fast and quiet.
 

maze

Active Member
Apr 27, 2013
576
100
43
Nice, I have done something similar for a rack in a bedroom closest. It has worked well for a few years. I initially used 12v PC fans connected to one of the computers in the rack. Those died and were replaced with 120v fans with a thermal switch for an attic fan.
I am working with a quiet rack right now that will use a AC Infinity inline duct fan to pull the air outside vs the 120mm fans pushing through the duct.
I was actually considering using 220v fans. But ended up doing the same, a set of 12v onto my vmware host and just running them at 12v.. Might try for 7v though, seems the pitch from the fans can be heard a bit from upstairs (not too sound proof sliding door)..

Are you generating that much heat or is the sound of jet fighter simply the result of original server fans?

I have found that wife friendly hardware is much easier to bring into the house although it tend to be challenging to get cheap, fast and quiet.
I'v actually tried it all. Had a SC846 before that sounded like a jetplane - GAF wasnt too high at the time. This is a lot better :) - Problem is that theres no natural ventilation in the room at all and the hot air stacks up in the top of the room which just causes the fans to spin faster :)