Bubblewrap, and some other question.

Japesgalore · Post by **Japesgalore** » Sun Sep 25, 2005 4:00 pm

I have a Hitachi T7K250 housed in a SilentDrive box. Thought I had eliminated all its noise, until I improved the silence of my other components. All that is left is some vibration.

I'm going to de-couple the box from my case and simply rest it on my DVD drive. Which cheap material should I use between the two to dampen the remaining vibration? I can think of either Blu-Tack or Bubblewrap, but I think I'd prefer the latter. Do both materials withstand temps up to 60C?

As some of you might know the SilentDrive is quite poor at removing heat. It has metal plates protruding from inside, which help, a bit. However, what's the concensus on which way up the drive should be facing for heat and/or performance benefits? Is there any difference? Does the metal-covered side get hotter and therefor need to be faced up and placed against the SilentDrive plate that has more protruding from the box? Did that make sense?

Cheers

vertigo · Post by **vertigo** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 12:38 pm

Bubblewrap won't withstand much heat. I think the enclosure will get too hot for it.

darthan · Post by **darthan** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 12:47 pm

I'd try getting some of that yellow or black foam used for lining cases of Warhammer figurines and such. Most plastics will withstand temperatures under 100C so that should be ok and it will certainly decouple the drive (although, it's a good insulator so make sure the important heat dissipation bits aren't buried in foam).

Is there any particular reason to rest it on your DVD drive? It would definitely be better to align your hd in front of an intake or fan to help cool it. 60C is not a good temperature for a hard drive(It actually exceeds the manufacturers specs). And you ahve to remember, if it is 60C outside the silentdrive it will be a lot hotter inside.

RachelG · Post by **RachelG** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 1:05 pm

I definitely wouldn't use blu-tack. It's a bit more extreme, temperature-wise, but I rested my cup of tea against some blu-tack by mistake and it went very gooey and horrible. Darthan's idea sounds good. If you haven't got any packing material, then how about buying a kitchen sponge and cutting it to size? Couldn't guarantee it's heat-worthiness, but they're certainly designed to survive hot water!

You could actually rest your hard drive enclosure at the bottom of your case rather than the top, which would be a bit cooler.

halfpower · Post by **halfpower** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 5:39 am

I'm not sure what Blu-tack is, but I suspect that bubblewrap would act as a good thermal insulator.

Al · Post by Al » Wed Sep 28, 2005 5:54 am

RachelG wrote:I definitely wouldn't use blu-tack.

I'll second that, blu-tack is designed to get softer and stickier as it heats up (so it always works better when you've rolled it between your fingers for a few seconds). What about suspending the box instead of sitting it on top of another (heat producing) component?

Al

BrianE · Post by **BrianE** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 9:24 pm

I guess Blu-tack is some brand of tacky putty that you can use to temporarily stick things (usually paper products) to walls and other surfaces? Yeah I wouldn't use that either.

I think foam of some kind is also a better idea. In one of the SPCR articles they even said that resting a HD on foam produced results almost as good as suspension.

justblair · Post by **justblair** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 12:58 am

I have a silent drive box working inside my bedroom machine. see link.

http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=23726

I played around with it, and I personally found that I could control the heat by suspending it in the path of my slow running intake fan.

Took a seagate cuda down to 38c which is within my "sleep at night" tolerences.

I mounted it via elastic suspension which dropped the noise down further. When it was mounted to a 5' bay as designed I was finding it inaudible on seek and read, but the crunching on write was still audible. The suspension cured this. It has two s brackets on one side that I removed to give clearance

In terms of HD orientaion. Mine is on a horizontal plane with the flat (hot) side of the HD at the top. Not sure it matters though. Defo use the longer plate for the smooth side though. It has more surface are outside the enclosure, and a quick check with my hand tells me that it is warmer.

I still plan in the future to add a heatsink to the thing. Basicly replaceing the metal L shaped plates with C shaped plates and adding processor heatsinks to these. I am hoping that I can get rid of the fan blowing onto them with the extra cooling. It will still be in the air intake path though.

Hope this helps...

alysenne · Post by **alysenne** » Wed Oct 05, 2005 2:31 pm

What I like to use for 'decoupling' material is rubber foam tape. It's normally used for insulation, and you can get various colors/thickness/etc from Home Depot/Lowes. It's great because its seems to be heat resistant and it already has adhesive.

I also like it because it's already in thin strips. I prefer as little contact as possible with the drive because heat can build up.

BrianE · Post by **BrianE** » Wed Oct 05, 2005 6:56 pm

alysenne wrote:What I like to use for 'decoupling' material is rubber foam tape. It's normally used for insulation, and you can get various colors/thickness/etc from Home Depot/Lowes. It's great because its seems to be heat resistant and it already has adhesive.

I also like it because it's already in thin strips. I prefer as little contact as possible with the drive because heat can build up.

Hey, that's a good idea, and it also gave me the idea of using them as "bumper strips" around the cage for suspended drives.