Server "Tycho" - Fractal Design Define XL w/15 HDDs.

Show off your quiet rig.

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Jim G
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Re: Server "Tycho" - Fractal Design Define XL w/15 HDDs.

Post by Jim G » Fri May 27, 2011 4:27 am

Pierre wrote: What's the thickness of that mass loading material you have there? I'm asking cause you mentioned many laying multiple sheets of it on the case...
Yes with a black foam top it will look great and uniform...and it will of course be more efficient...


Yes, we are talking about the same thing..the reason I mentioned the other products, without being explanative is to account for two different approaches to mass loading...
- The acoustipack product has the heavier tar sheet in the middle of its 3 layer sound insulating material among the two foam layers...this adds weight while at the same time supposedly allowing better absorption of vibrations, by preventing the heavier, harder materials, e.g. the cases side panel surface and the tar sheet, from "interacting", so that the small movements of the tar sheet caused by vibrations are not transmitted to the outter metal surface...i.e. the foam layer between the panel and the tar sheet acts like a "buffer" of some sort, while the whole package still adds the extra weight needed to prevent vibrations

- The other product approach, most common to other sound insulation packages, is exactly to have the heavier materials contact each to produce a better "binding" effect, thus reducing the vibrations more effectively...it may also be regarded safer to have the heavier materials "glued" together to support the weight of the added material instead of having the tar sheet further away from the contacing surface and laying on the foam base...don't know if this actually stands, i.e. that it could peel off easier...at least it sounds more logical for the side panels or the top of the case, instead of the bottom, where this would make no difference

It's better to have that in areas where you won't be adding foam on top...I've also used it to fashion custom "Moduvents"...
the downside is that if the surface is not absolutely flat it won't stick properly, and there also is less margin for error when cutting pieces to apply to the case...
The mass loading material is 1.5mm thick, including the foil layer.

Interesting info there... I think I'm going with the second approach with the heavier layers against the metal and the lighter foam on top - to my mind having a really light layer inbetween the panels and the mass loading must surely reduce the effectiveness of said mass loading and allow the vibrations in the panels to transmit to other areas more easily.

I've come up with a much better and far more aesthetic solution for the side panels as of today... will post some photos up tomorrow - I think it's rather more fetching than the silver foil ;) It's cheaper to boot and has already almost totally removed the vibrations in the one side I've added it to...

Jim G
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Re: Server "Tycho" - Fractal Design Define XL w/15 HDDs.

Post by Jim G » Sat May 28, 2011 6:41 pm

Well, darn it all. I forgot to take photos of the tiles themselves, only them on the scales. :S

Inspired by some info on these forums I went to the local hardware store in search of some cheap, heavy, adhesive vinyl tiles to use on the side doors since filling them with the $30/small roll sound deadening material would require well over a hundred dollars worth of material to cover with more than one layer and just one layer of the stuff doesn't seem to make as much difference as I'd like.

As it turns out I was in luck - for $1.33 they have 30cmx30cmx1mm adhesive black tiles with a slight white marbled pattern - it's quite fetching! I bought a handful and discovered that 3 and a bit cover an entire door... and that there's room enough to layer at least 4mm of tiles on top of the existing sound deadening material. Each tile weighs around 200gm:

Image

The standard doors weigh approx. 3,075gm stock - after one layer of the vinyl tiles one weighed 3,750gm and there is a significant reduction in the amount of vibrations passing through the door - it also resonates with a very dull thud when you knock on it rather than the more metallic noise it made previously. I'm waiting to see how well the adhesive goes over the next week or so before adding some more but I plan on adding in several more layers to see if I can't totally deaden the panel and remove all vibration entirely.

The tiles aren't as adhesive as the butyl mass loading material but they still seem to be adequately sticky... I'll be interested to see how they're holding up in 6 or 12 months, though.

Photos of the panels with the vinyl in place to come, since I somehow forgot to take any last time I had the doors off...

iBurger
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Re: Server "Tycho" - Fractal Design Define XL w/15 HDDs.

Post by iBurger » Thu Aug 04, 2011 1:12 am

Any updates? I really love this topic! iBurger

Jim G
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Re: Server "Tycho" - Fractal Design Define XL w/15 HDDs.

Post by Jim G » Thu Aug 04, 2011 1:16 am

iBurger wrote:Any updates? I really love this topic! iBurger
No updates for a little while now - too darned busy! Got a couple of items on order and a couple more waiting to be ordered and I'll post back once they're here... the vinyl tiles on one side are working out perfectly - on the other side they're adhering less well so I think I'm going to find some glue to make them stick together a bit better.

I also ditched the rear 140mm fan and made an air duct from the CPU cooler to the existing vent - it's had a negligible effect on the CPU temperature, HDD temps or motherboard temp and it's removed entirely one of the noise sources from the case which has worked quite well to reduce the overall noise level...

jjwa
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Re: Server "Tycho" - Fractal Design Define XL w/15 HDDs.

Post by jjwa » Wed Aug 17, 2011 6:19 am

Interesting topic! I subscribed. It looks like you are doing a good job in your build :). And I appreciate the effort that went into the pictures.

I am running 10 HDDs in my old Antec P180 case at the moment, so I have some similar difficulties and have already put the Fractal Design Define XL on my wishlist last time I was tinkering around in my (now very very full) case :).

You mention adding two SSDs, and I see you are using a Lian Li 4-in-3. Have you considered this one? It fits four 3,5" drives, has a fan, AND lets you add 2 SSDs to the sides (6-in-3?) :). I have tried ordering it, but the availability is horrible in The Netherlands.

What type of shops do you buy that (cheap thicker) foam in? I used a few bits of packaging material I had to fill up some space, but I could really use some more.

Have you already installed the full amount of HDDs? I would be interested to see it installed, including how you did the cable management of so many internal devices.

Jim G
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Re: Server "Tycho" - Fractal Design Define XL w/15 HDDs.

Post by Jim G » Wed Aug 17, 2011 2:48 pm

jjwa wrote:Interesting topic! I subscribed. It looks like you are doing a good job in your build :). And I appreciate the effort that went into the pictures.

I am running 10 HDDs in my old Antec P180 case at the moment, so I have some similar difficulties and have already put the Fractal Design Define XL on my wishlist last time I was tinkering around in my (now very very full) case :).

You mention adding two SSDs, and I see you are using a Lian Li 4-in-3. Have you considered this one? It fits four 3,5" drives, has a fan, AND lets you add 2 SSDs to the sides (6-in-3?) :). I have tried ordering it, but the availability is horrible in The Netherlands.

What type of shops do you buy that (cheap thicker) foam in? I used a few bits of packaging material I had to fill up some space, but I could really use some more.

Have you already installed the full amount of HDDs? I would be interested to see it installed, including how you did the cable management of so many internal devices.
Heh, thanks for the heads-up re: the Lian Li item - I'm in the middle of modifying the one I have to be just like that one... looks like that might save me some time and look better at the end of the day :p Now to find someone who'll ship that thing to Australia.

Re: the foam - do you mean the adhesive foam or just the stuff I'm using to fill in the bottom section of the case?

I did a test run with 14 HDDs a couple of months ago just to see how things sat but didn't take any shots at the time - I'll post up a couple of shots later today if I get time regarding that, though.

JsPr
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Re: Server "Tycho" - Fractal Design Define XL w/15 HDDs.

Post by JsPr » Wed Apr 11, 2012 1:50 pm

Can anyone that has both the XL and the R3 compare how silent each one is ? I'm hesitating between the two, I definitely don't need 10Hds so an R3 would be enough, but I probably could use 3 5.25" bays. And silence is a must for me.

Cheers

Jim G
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Re: Server "Tycho" - Fractal Design Define XL w/15 HDDs.

Post by Jim G » Thu Apr 12, 2012 12:33 am

JsPr wrote:Can anyone that has both the XL and the R3 compare how silent each one is ? I'm hesitating between the two, I definitely don't need 10Hds so an R3 would be enough, but I probably could use 3 5.25" bays. And silence is a must for me.

Cheers
We used both for ~12 months and I found them to be very close in terms of silence - though I did install additional sound-dampening material into both of them. I would give the edge to the XL in terms of my own personal experience, purely subjective with no measurement - the 140mm fans are quieter for pushing the same amount of air vs the 120mms, as far as I've seen.

YMMV, though - as I said, I did put additional sound dampening material into both (the last iteration had vinyl tiles adhered to the sides with 5mm foam on top of that and butyl-foil sound deadening material on all free internal surfaces) but I found the XL quiet enough to work next to without complaint and I'm fairly obsessive about computing in silence.

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