I had collected some pictures to post a thread on my "non-destructive" mods to a Coolermaster Stacker 830 case. Some of the DIY efforts of Anandtech modders some 10 years past meet with less enthusiasm lately, because case-makers have passed on innovations to users that might seem to make personal efforts less necessary and more likely something you can pay for.
Moreover, working with the materials I've found to be useful for ducting and filtering can seem like kindergarten finger-paint and construction-paper projects.
The Stacker was built with ventilation in mind:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119122
http://www.coolermaster.com/service/support/model/RC-830/
It is probably no longer possible to obtain a Stacker, and newer case designs prevail today. I'm simply trying to get extended use from the one I have. And I'm providing this information below simply to demonstrate what can be done for ducting and filtering.
It has a plastic door on a spring-loaded hinge inside the left side-panel which accommodates up to four 140mm or 120mm fans. You could even mod this door with Lexan/Plexi pieces to accommodate a single 200mm fan, but you would irreversibly change the door in the process. You can, however, block off quadrants of the door with square Lexan plates with holes drilled to the 140mm fan-spec. Here's a photo taken with my array of case and ducting parts:
But the Stacker never offered much in the way of fan-filtering. DEMCiFlex offers a single, large magnetic filter that fits the side-panel exterior for some $50+. If you only have two fans installed in the inner plastic door as I do, you can get a DEMCiFlex generic 2x140 rectangular filter for about ~$25 and apply it directly to the hinged door:
For ducting a heatpipe cooler to rear exhaust, you can either build your own duct as I'd shown in some much older thread, or find a $6 solution in the ThermalRight accordion ducts sold as accessory to TR coolers. The "blue-rubber-ductie" is a perfect fit for a Hyper 212 EVO, and can be made to fit several other tower heatpipes as well:
http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/th12fandubl.html
The front-panel of the Stacker is covered with a hinged door which is also vented -- shown in the open position on the right side of this photo:
Note that the metal vents for the mostly-aluminum Stacker are made from perf-steel: this provides better shielding for electronic parts. But the holes in these perf-steel vents -- while catching a lot of dust over time -- are not effective filters for the finer stuff.
The drive cages behind the front door and within the chassis of the Stacker include fittings for 120mm fans, but no filters. I was able to fit 140mm fans to the cages with rubber fan-mounts and 140-to-120 plastic adapters. But how would you filter them?
Since appearances aren't as important behind the front door, I built a frame [shown above] to make an interference fit with the two fan shrouds. It uses three layers of laminated foam-art-board, and I resurrected the wire-screen filters from HAF 932 cases sandwiched between the layers. [The HAF 932 got custom DEMCiFlex filters, so these wire screens were discards].
Finally, the Stacker provides mountings for a 13"x2"x2" CM barrel fan called the "Cross-flow." My Stacker had already been fitted with the barrel fan -- reversed to exhaust air off the motherboard and out the right side-panel. I simply chose to leave it in place, and ducted the motherboard with Lexan so that the CF fan draws air across the motherboard. Here, the Lexan duct is installed, and you can hardly see it. The CF fan sits just to the right of the motherboard forward-edge:
The problem here: CM apparently didn't anticipate the size of today's graphics cards, which would interfere with the fan itself. If I want to install graphics cards in this Stacker case, I'll either need to think of another way to duct motherboard air and eliminate the barrel fan, or use mini ITX graphics cards, such as the GTX 1060 introduced recently:
https://www.amazon.com/EVGA-GeForce...&qid=1471802336&sr=8-2&keywords=gtx+1060+mini
Unfortunately, I'll have to wait for a GTX 1070 mini-card if I want 2x SLI graphics in this configuration.
The barrel fan draws about 80% of its air from the top of the motherboard, and about 20% from underneath. The motherboard pan is ventilated with 1cm-diameter holes. Since these holes would effectively be an intake channel, I decided to filter them as well:
Here's where I took a cue from DEMCiFlex, with their use of magnetic tape and filters:
Note that I also installed a foam-board rectangular, easy-to-remove baffle to seal the gap between the motherboard pan and the vertical drive cage, with a small hole for SATA wires.
The DEMCiFlex filters use a medical-grade mesh screen material, which can be purchased separately. So you can buy yourself a role of 2mm-thick magnetic tape at Home-Depot for ~$4, use foam-board to build filter-frames for some given situation, and make your own easily-removable filters.
Generally, there are two types of glue which work with foam-board:
Beacon Hold-the-Foam, which is a water-based non-toxic glue for styrofoam which will also bond foam to wood, paper and plastic, and --
ZAP Foam-Safe CA , which can bond foam-board to paper, wood, Lexan or Plexi.
A set of small quick-release clamps is useful for working with these materials.
So I provide this summary -- not to show what a great production I've made with an old Stacker 830 -- but to suggest ideas you might find useful in your own ducting and filtering project.
You can find either custom or generic filters made by DEMCiFlex, and if you can't find a custom filter for your case, those made for a different case may fit, or take a look at the generic filter offerings. And if you need to, you can manufacture your own magnetic filters.
As for appearances, foam board can be filled with a paper-mache product or the Beacon glue, and it can be painted to a high-gloss finish with acrylic enamel.
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