A CM Stacker 830 / Cross-flow Fan mod

[BonzaiDuck]

[See EDIT at end of this problem statement -- drafted next day 6-26-08]
I've yet to post the sixteen-chapter case-mod project containing color-pictures with circles and arrows on the back of each one -- a 1994 Compaq ProLiant Server case mod that I still find, after a year's use, to be almost the ideal for several cooling strategies.

I have another machine to build. I'd been looking wistfully at the CM Stacker cases for the last couple years, deferring my spend-thriftiness in favor of sheet-metal-mod projects with these old cases (which I have in ample supply.)

A friend bought a spare CM Stacker 830 SE. Just retired, he's a little anxious about his cash-flow until the annuity checks start coming in, so he sold me the spare -- brand-new in its carton. The carton had never been opened. I figure I saved $30 on the price, $30 on the shipping cost, and about $15 on the state tax.

These Stacker 830 cases seem almost too well ventilated for a pressurized-case strategy, until you realize that they provide for just about every possible fan-deployment that you'd want. One is tempted to overload the case unnecessarily with fans. However, the unnecessary ventilation can be resolved with putting Lexan or foam-art-board plates over vents that you want covered.

The drawback of the Stacker 830: it lacks the advantage I built into my ProLiant mod -- two 120mm exhaust-fan ports. The Stacker 830 only has one such port.

With the ProLiant mod, I was able to duct the motherboard and chipset to one fan ("low-volume, high-velocity" air-throughput strategy), and the second fan served to suck air off the TR Ultra 120 Extreme CPU cooler.

Now I want to duct the motherboard for the Stacker 830 build. I had actually planned to board off the right-side of the case (vented like the left side) and cover the rectangular hole for the proprietary CoolerMaster Cross-flow barrel-fan. Despite user comments which criticized the practicality of the barrel-fan in the Stacker 830, I found a cross-flow fan for $21, thinking I'd risk the chump-change to see what I could do with it.

Now it occurs to me that I might be able to suck air off the motherboard from under a mobo duct panel -- similar to the strategy I used on the ProLiant mod. The cross-flow fan, instead, blows air across the motherboard. I'm thinking that if I could either change the fan's orientation -- even modding the metal-shroud of the fan (if necessary) -- I could reverse the flow from what Coolermaster intended, leave the right-side case panel vented, and blow the air from the barrel fan out the right side of the case. The right-side case panel "modder-mesh" could still use some foam-art-board -- to restrict airflow from the case to only the aperture fed by the barrel-fan.

SO -- MY QUESTION FOR ALL THE FAN-SAVVY FOLKS -- DO YOU THINK I COULD REVERSE THE POLARITY ON THE BARREL FAN TO GET THE SAME AIR-FLOW EFFECT, WITHOUT MODDING THE FAN SHROUD OR TRYING TO CHANGE THE FAN'S ORIENTATION TO SERVE MY PLAN?

ANY SUGGESTIONS TOWARD GETTING THE CROSS-FLOW FAN'S AIR-FLOW REVERSED WILL BE VERY MUCH APPRECIATED.

EDIT 6-26-08:

Cross-Flow Fan disassembled by Coolermaster

Scrolling to the bottom of the Coolermaster link, a picture reveals how disassembly to change air-flow direction may be possible. But ALL KINDS of stuff is possible. One could, for instance, cut away parts of the fan-shroud and replace it with sheet-aluminum pieces, holes drilled to allow use of Stacker threaded holes on the motherboard.

My CM barrel-fan comes tomorrow, and I'm psyched. Psyched over what seems to be an insignificant and trivial mod that eliminates other modding to the case.

 

[Rubycon]

Does that squirrel cage have a brushless motor?

 

[BonzaiDuck]

You know -- I never looked into that. I can confirm observations of others on two counts: it is quiet, and it moves a lot of air. I can't even remember if it uses sleeve-bearings or high quality ball-bearings. I can't remember what the MTBF rating was, either.

I CAN say that the mounting of the motor and blade assembly in the metal fan shroud isolates those noise-generating parts completely with some very soft rubber grommets at either end of the cage.

This is only one of two barrel-fans that I've had any experience with. The other was a stubbier model that came with a VGA heatpipe cooler called the Sytrin KUFormula. I'm guessing that the assembly of such fans is very similar across the board, even if made by different companies.

If it helps, the motor seems to be very compact.

 

[Tullphan]

So...how you got this thing rigged up?
Is it working better for you than using the side panel fans?