Been working on this one for a while. I wanted to keep two Maxtor drives at a reasonable temp (around 40c) without fan cooling. This latest design seems to fit the bill. It's a solid copper enclosure, made of .025 copper sheets, 4"x10" (I used four at US $4.10 each). I got these at a hobby store.
The setup sits right in the airflow of my lower case fan wooden box. There's an article going on this box. It has a 120mm fan blowing out the back.
This was a difficult build. What makes this work well is that all four of the edges of both drives are heat-sinked by the copper box. The box is soldered at all edges for maximum heat conductivity. The hard part was getting the whole thing square, so that all the HD edges are a snug fit in the box.
The holes were drilled with a set of sheet metal cutting bits.....don't think you could do this with a standard bit. Right now the drives are sitting at 38/39c (smart temp) with an ambient temp of 26c. If I measure the copper cage temp with a DD5 right at one of the mount screws....it reads about 32c. So far it's a success.
DIY Copper HD Cooler
Wooden Box Article
The setup sits right in the airflow of my lower case fan wooden box. There's an article going on this box. It has a 120mm fan blowing out the back.
This was a difficult build. What makes this work well is that all four of the edges of both drives are heat-sinked by the copper box. The box is soldered at all edges for maximum heat conductivity. The hard part was getting the whole thing square, so that all the HD edges are a snug fit in the box.
The holes were drilled with a set of sheet metal cutting bits.....don't think you could do this with a standard bit. Right now the drives are sitting at 38/39c (smart temp) with an ambient temp of 26c. If I measure the copper cage temp with a DD5 right at one of the mount screws....it reads about 32c. So far it's a success.
DIY Copper HD Cooler
Wooden Box Article
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