S
SF Audio
New member
You are right - the fan is a bit noisy. Can you give me a rundown of how to replace the fan? Any soldering to do?
thanks for any help!
thanks for any help!
skippy
New member
Well, I talked about it in http://www.homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?threadid=19703 in some detail. Without posting drawings, it'd be harder to say much more about it- but I'll try.
There will be some soldering (just the two fan leads), and some minor metalwork to do on the fan bracket: cutting the hole for the bigger fan, and redrilling 3 of the 4 mounting screw holes for the new, larger fan. I cut the new hole for the 50mm fan with a hole saw in my drill press, since I have a pretty well equipped shop due to my other nasty habits. You could do it with a hand nibbler, but the hole saw made it go much more easily and quickly. It took about 20 minutes to lay it out, redrill the mount holes, hog out the big hole, and deburr it. If you're not accustomed to doing metalwork, it will probably take you a bit longer.
I laid out the new hole to properly align the fan with the ventilation slots in the drive carrier: the original fan hole was offset so that 50% of the fan area was blowing at a blank (non-perforated!) area of the carrier shell. The fan itself was a ball-bearing unit salvaged off a spare processor heatsink that I had laying around. Basically, _anything_ bigger than 40mm will do the trick: the fan specs are noncritical.
The voltage drop for the fan power supply to reduce its speed I did with a string of 1amp diodes (since I had a pile of them available in the junk drawer): I kept adding diodes in series until I liked the sound of the fan on my bench, then soldered it up and heatshrinked it. I believe that I ended up with 9 in series, for roughly a 5.4v drop- the fan is left running at 6.6v, which is high enough to guarantee that it will still start each time it is powered up, but low enough to keep the blades from shedding vortices.
You probably don't need to bother with the front panel blanking plate. I made one, but no longer use it- it's not necessary once you quiet the fan. That was pretty time-consuming, making the locator-peg slots... The Dynamat work was trivial: cut, peel, and stick.
Mostly, just pull the machine apart and have a look, and a listen. Running it on the bench with the top cover off will really tell you everything you need to know!
There will be some soldering (just the two fan leads), and some minor metalwork to do on the fan bracket: cutting the hole for the bigger fan, and redrilling 3 of the 4 mounting screw holes for the new, larger fan. I cut the new hole for the 50mm fan with a hole saw in my drill press, since I have a pretty well equipped shop due to my other nasty habits. You could do it with a hand nibbler, but the hole saw made it go much more easily and quickly. It took about 20 minutes to lay it out, redrill the mount holes, hog out the big hole, and deburr it. If you're not accustomed to doing metalwork, it will probably take you a bit longer.
I laid out the new hole to properly align the fan with the ventilation slots in the drive carrier: the original fan hole was offset so that 50% of the fan area was blowing at a blank (non-perforated!) area of the carrier shell. The fan itself was a ball-bearing unit salvaged off a spare processor heatsink that I had laying around. Basically, _anything_ bigger than 40mm will do the trick: the fan specs are noncritical.
The voltage drop for the fan power supply to reduce its speed I did with a string of 1amp diodes (since I had a pile of them available in the junk drawer): I kept adding diodes in series until I liked the sound of the fan on my bench, then soldered it up and heatshrinked it. I believe that I ended up with 9 in series, for roughly a 5.4v drop- the fan is left running at 6.6v, which is high enough to guarantee that it will still start each time it is powered up, but low enough to keep the blades from shedding vortices.
You probably don't need to bother with the front panel blanking plate. I made one, but no longer use it- it's not necessary once you quiet the fan. That was pretty time-consuming, making the locator-peg slots... The Dynamat work was trivial: cut, peel, and stick.
Mostly, just pull the machine apart and have a look, and a listen. Running it on the bench with the top cover off will really tell you everything you need to know!