Hardcore Sound studio Sound Isolation Cooling Project

[R3kl355]

Hey All. 1st post here. Im using found hanging out at the music production Forums at http://www.dogsonacid.com/, but Ive been thinking about a project that is abit beyond the knowlege base there. I was hoping some of you guys could help me out. Cheers

Project: Contain an AMD Athlon XP 2600, Asus A7N8X, 1GB Corsair DDR, Radeon 9800 Pro Based PC System and a Apple Dual 1ghz G4 Mac in a big box for Sound isolation purposes in my studio. This means I wanna Silence all the noise to silence by keeping the computers in a box, as I work in a recording studio.

I was thinking of making the box about::: 30 inches W x 30 inces H x 24 inches deep.
I was thinking of making it out of 1/2 inch thick Plywood, and making the doors out of Plexiglass set in a wood frame, with a sealed foam layer to close it securely.
I was thinking box mount the box on coaters (wheels, so the box wottom sits about 2' off the floor).
I was going cut a big, say 12 inches x 5 inch hole in the bottom to run the computer cables through.]
I was going to coat the inside of the box with Accosutic foam.

Now the important thing. I was going to buy 2 x 120mm Vantec Stealth fans to install. One on the top back door to blow Hot Air Out, and One one the bottom back door to pump Cool Air in.

I kinda need some advice in regards to if you guys think my Computers will completly melt down and fry with the heat, or do you think the temperate will be able to be kep cool enough? I was thinking of installing a fan controller in the box, somehow to turn off the main power supplu for both Computers if the Temperate gets too high......... ??

Does anyone have any ideas or thoughts on this setup, can give me some good naturred advice, or give me some tips that may help me out in this isolation unit's design? There are companies out there that make such boxes, but they cost around $3500 to buy :-(.

ANyway, any help or suggestions appreciated. Ive been sitting on this project for about a year, .. its a hard one to get accurate advice on....


Cheers Guys


P.s. If any of you havecomputer based audio recording / music making questions, feel free to drop by dogsonacid, and well sort you out

 

[Nebor]

I think you will fry the crap out of your computers. Without serious ventilation, that box will quickly rise to over 40C, leaving your CPUs to pump hot air and get dangerous toasty....

That's just my guess, seeing as how, if I close the door to my computer room, and have some intense LAN action going on w/ my two computers, the temp can get up to 32C in here... And that's w/ AC!! Imagine what those comps would do in a tiny little box.

I'd consider much larger, though slower spinning, fans.

 

[huesmann]

If you're keeping the 'puters in a box, you should put them in there without the case covers on, so they can basically share the airflow inside the box. If I were you I would cut a very small hole for cables, just big enough to get all the cables in on place, and pack some foam around it to seal it up.

Is there a reason you want to use a R9800Pro in the PC? You could use something that puts out a little less heat and use a Zalman heatsink on it. Are you gonna be playing games in the sound studio?

You will also need to have air intakes and exhaust ports. You will want these baffled and lined with accoustic foam, to minimize the sound coming out, and the longer the better. As noted above, you will also want low-speed fans to minimize the noise. Using bigger ones as you are thinking of doing is also a good idea. I do think you will need more than 2 fans. I would aim to make your baffled ports big enough to hold 2 each of the 120mm fans.

Not sure why you want plexiglas doors, seems to me all they would do is transmit vibration.

Edit: I would also include some 120mm fans inside the case, just to keep the air moving around, to avoid stagnant spots. Ideally, you would arrange things so that the air circulates from the intake, around the case (making sure you get flow over the heat-producing parts), and out the exhaust, all in a consistent constant pattern.

 

[R3kl355]

Thanks for ur advice guys

Originally posted by: huesmann
Is there a reason you want to use a R9800Pro in the PC? You could use something that puts out a little less heat and use a Zalman heatsink on it. Are you gonna be playing games in the sound studio?

Yep.. The end of the working day usually results in Beer and fragging and take-out.

You will also need to have air intakes and exhaust ports. You will want these baffled and lined with accoustic foam, to minimize the sound coming out, and the longer the better. As noted above, you will also want low-speed fans to minimize the noise. Using bigger ones as you are thinking of doing is also a good idea. I do think you will need more than 2 fans. I would aim to make your baffled ports big enough to hold 2 each of the 120mm fans.

Port are an excellent idea. I hadn't though of that before. With baffled ports, I could dooble the quantity of fans, but cut the noise well. Cheers!

Not sure why you want plexiglas doors, seems to me all they would do is transmit vibration.

So I can see inside. I quess I could just use wood, but I was toying with the idea of extending the hight of the box, and also including rack gear inside there as well, which I would like to see,.... Temperature permitting

Edit: I would also include some 120mm fans inside the case, just to keep the air moving around, to avoid stagnant spots. Ideally, you would arrange things so that the air circulates from the intake, around the case (making sure you get flow over the heat-producing parts), and out the exhaust, all in a consistent constant pattern.

Thankyou very much for your thoughts. You are on the ball, and have given me a few more things to consider. TY man

 

[huesmann]

If you want to see inside, I'd use glass instead of plexi. It's heavier and resists vibration (sound) better.

 

[R3kl355]

Originally posted by: huesmann
If you want to see inside, I'd use glass instead of plexi. It's heavier and resists vibration (sound) better.

Yeah.... I gotta enlist the services of a class cutter 1st..... a bit more expensive...... than gutting plexiglass with a jig saw myself.

But if Im going to the trouble to put ports in the box, then I may as well go the whole way, put glass in there and use solid timber..


cheers

 

[huesmann]

Were you planning on having a fancy window? You can get a regular rectangular piece of glass from a plate glass shop, or even the hardware store, pretty cheap.

 

[igotid24]

check out this link: Yoshi's Stealth Pc
theres a lot of good info there about making every component as quite as possible.

the one thing that i would reccomend that is talked about in the link is for whatever fans you use, make "mufflers" for them. and with all that hardware i would suggest at least 4 fans, basically the more the better because than you can run them at a slower speed which gives it a much better air flow to sound level ratio. water cooling would be the way to go but if you don't have the money it can still be done with air.

 

[beatle]

I don't believe you'll have a problem with heat, depending on how hot your case runs already. The tbred in my sig is enclosed on 5 sides. It has 2 80mm L1a's on the side of the CASE (not the enclosure) and the PSU is the only exhaust. Granted, I'm not overclocking, but temps are always below 50, even under full load. That's much cooler than my Barton!

 

[madcow235]

Get panaflos they are quieter and put out more air. The stealths have a high pitched squeel

 

[jarsoffart]

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You can try that. SilentPCReview.com also has other good ideas. There is a rather 1337 project with heatpipes and a huge aluminum heatsink. That is truly 1337. It is so 1337 it deserves the 1337-speak spelling.