Home-made case filters?

[MichaelD]

My apartment is really dusty. I mean, REALLY dusty. I keep all my windows closed. I don't have any dogs or cats, but yet a get a ton of dust all over everything. Amazing.

Anyway, the inside of my case gets coated. I prolly don't need to, but I vacuum it out about every 120 days or so. I'd like to get some kind of filters, or preferably MAKE some filters for it.

I have an Antec 1040 case. Unfortunately, in the interest of better cooling, I've already Dremeled-out the metal grills in front of the two front intake fans (I have 4 fans, two intake, two exhaust) so that kinda screws things up a little. Any suggestions? Thanks.

 

[punkrawket]

pantyhose between two layers of window screening works, you could always buy the foam ones and loose airflow, i'v heard thin foam (had at home depot, lowes, etc) is pretty good, used dryer sheets might work i've never tried it though
just a few ideas

 

[Sundog]

Filter material for a home forced air filter. Just cut it to size. Easy to do and pretty cheap.

 

[L00PY]

<< My apartment is really dusty. I mean, REALLY dusty. I keep all my windows closed. I don't have any dogs or cats, but yet a get a ton of dust all over everything. Amazing. >>



It's probably a combination of the people and the ventilation system. Lots of people in a building = lots of sources of dust. Assuming you live in a city, all the cars cause a fair amount of soot too.

Anyways, I'd suggest you have higher CFM fans as intake and lower CFM as exhaust. If you're sucking air in through your drives and assorted cracks in your case, the effectiveness of your filter is lowered.

You should be able to screw in fan guards into the front of the case to replace the metal grills. If that's the way you want to go. Pretty much anything you drop in front of your intakes will cut down on the dust. Low cost solutions that work (as mentioned above) are used dryer sheets, cut up furance filters, window / screen door screens, foam filters (like for window a/c units), or pantyhose. Any temp gain you get from CFM loss should more than be made up for by the drop in dust.

Raising your case up off the floor should is another simple thing to do that will help on dust too if you haven't already done so.

 

[MichaelD]

Great suggestions, guys. Thanks very much. My case is off the floor. It sits in a cubbyhole in my PC desk, about 18 inches off the floor.

I cut the back off the cubbyhole so I have the same ventilation as if the case was out in the open. Thanks again. Have a great weekend.

 

[JokerF15]

personally i would hop over to www.2cooltek.com and pick up some alumminum mesh filters. They take care of *Most* of hte dust and barely affect airflow, then again i dont really have a dusty room.

good luck

-JokerF15

 

[rondeemc]

the home air filter works or else you can use some of the filters meant for exhaust hoods. A visit to Home Depot should suffice.

 

[SOHCC]

Someone suggested to use the anti-static dryer sheet. That's what I use. I use the one that had already been used. Kill 2 birds with 1 stone kinda thing

 

[Jeff7]

For the longest time, I would use standard air-conditioner air filters, held on the back of the computer with some duct tape. Worked fine, and wasn't visible.
Now that I have holes in the side of the computer, I bought a plastic filter assembly; I need to rig up a way of just popping it off though, as it's presently screwed through the case. It really does a fine job of filtering dust too; it's over a 120mm fan too, so the thing still moves plenty of air.