DIY Sound insulate your cannon fan

[sedate]

DIY: Sound insulate your cannon fan for $40

So I've been modding my growroom all week -

I've noticed alot of posters don't care for the noise generated by the requisite cannon fan - and have come up with some outlandish solutions to this problem.

As a longtime car-stereo junkie - I had the perfect solution sitting in my garage.

This solution requires two, smallish purchases:



and -



The roller is important - the aluminum skin will cut the shit out of your fingers if you do this by hand. And you won't get nearly the same level of adhesion without it.

This is the size strip you want - cutting down simple rectangles measuring about 2.5" x 12" - and carefully applying each strip, works wonders for your car door - and your cannon fan.

If your subwoofer hits so hard your CD player skips - I have this problem from time to time - run weatherstripping over the screw holes - like so.

Done!

I lost my db meter awhile ago - but, I'd estimate an 6 - 8 db loss over an uncovered fan.

This is alot.

With my growroom door closed - this fucker - on the maximum setting - is inaudible.

 

[Papa]

nice. very nice.



Papa

 

[bigAl25]

Cool idea. I need to upgrade mine with this fix. Thanks,

 

[ganja guy]

great idea

 

[zoeronerer]

at least 8' of insulated ducting on each side will really cut the sound down to near silent ....

i noticed you have alot of twists and kinks ..every angle in your ducting work cuts down by as much as 30% for a 90 degree angle.................. you can calculate the cfm your loosing if u look on an hvac site ......:cash

the car stereo dina mat stufff is a good idea


oh and dont ever just seat the fan on the scrubber a ton of noise bleeds out again 8' is a good number for the insulated pre scrub for silence....

 

[CAPO]

Whassup Sedate...awesome idea!
I've been thinking about making a diy muffler for my 6" vortex, you know like the store bought ones that are bulky as hell. This is a superb idea, but I thought that the rush of air was what was making all the noise.. Are you saying that this works just as good. I need to do something, but I want to be sure this would work good enough before I dropped the coin on that insulation material.
Thanks.

 

[SkyHi]

Nice bro i was waiting for this, i saw your pics in the gallery when i was uploading some pics.

 

[Mr.Sputnik]

I built a box around mine and it insulates the sound very well. The fan is right on top of the scrubber as well (all contained inside the box, it has 2 scrubbers) The dynamat is a great idea! The insulated ducting also keeps the in room temps a little lower as well. Good tip with the weatherstripping as well.

 

[tcurtiss]

I like the dynamat idea also

I think it's time to go shopping

 

[CAPO]

Whassup Sedate...awesome idea!
I've been thinking about making a diy muffler for my 6" vortex, you know like the store bought ones that are bulky as hell. This is a superb idea, but I thought that the rush of air was what was making all the noise.. Are you saying that this works just as good. I need to do something, but I want to be sure this would work good enough before I dropped the coin on that insulation material.
Thanks.

Actually...that sounded dumb re-reading my post.

What I meant to say is: what percentage of noise was reduced after you pimped it out with the dynamat.
Like if your standing in the room is it 50% more quiet?
Thanks again great tutorial.

 

[Lost]

In other news, Car audio stores notice a 1500% increase in dynamat sales for no appearant reason...

 

[Lost]

How about putting a little of that on your air pump to keep the vibes down a little. You'd have to do it on the expensive metal bodied ones, but they seem to stay cool nuff....

 

[sedate]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

A couple of other points:

The design Sputnik rigged, or say, Boylobster's rig over in the grow diaries is, in absolute terms, probably more effective than this simple Dynamat job at vibration isolation - but that's the beauty of it IMO - other than taking down the cannon fan for a moment, no other growroom modifications are necessary.

Building a wooden case like Sputnik would probably isolate the fan a bit more - but it also involves building a wooden case, stuffing it (at least I would, with some poly-fill or something like that), and eating up a corner of the grow room.

The sheet of Dynamat only costs $25 - the dyna-roller maybe $7 - so the whole mod will come in under $40 delivered and doesn't involve modding any other part of the growroom or even one whole hour of time.

I've been thinking about making a diy muffler for my 6" vortex, you know like the store bought ones that are bulky as hell.

Are you saying that this works just as good.

I'm not really comparing this directly to anything - since I've never tried another solution.

I can say I haven't seen any other solution that costs <$40, and certainly not one that would be as effective as this was for that price and the 20 minutes it took me to wrap the fan.

The duct-mufflers might be effective - i have no idea - but for the nearly $200 they cost (I can get fucking car muffler for that - or an entire case of dynamat AND a set of coaxials) and the extra bulk and install hassle, the dynamat is a much simpler, and much cheaper solution.

Dynamat, used in conjuction with a muffler, or a wooden case (Boylobster's plastic trash cans would also be an effective sonic barrier, since plastic is a horrid conductor) or something -the system would probably be near-silent to human ears.

What I meant to say is: what percentage of noise was reduced after you pimped it out with the dynamat.

In absolute terms, I'd estimate a 6 - 8 decibel reduction in volume. This translates to approximately a 200 - 275% reduction in acoustical power.

In terms of human ears and volume perception however, (the decibel scale doesn't do a good job with this, IMO), a 50% decrease in volume is a good estimate - most stereo-afficiandos agree that a 10dB inrease or decrease is a "doubling" or "halving" of volume (not raw acousitcal power, but the human perception of that power).

My cannon fan didn't bother me too much, but when I was sleeping I could hear the fucker droning, since I sleep directly above the grow room. With the growroom door shut, I could still hear the fan clearly in the adjacent rooms, above and below.

The dynamat killed the drone and now, with the grow-room door shut, I can't hear the fan at all. Even on the maximum speed setting.

In fact, I've gone into the growroom a couple of times to make sure it's still on - I'm really not used to a growroom being so quiet!

How about putting a little of that on your air pump to keep the vibes down a little. You'd have to do it on the expensive metal bodied ones, but they seem to stay cool nuff....

Dynamat is generally applied to metal in car applications because of acoustical resonance, but here it would be effective on either airpump, plastic or metal.

 

[Shady]

In other news, Car audio stores notice a 1500% increase in dynamat sales for no appearant reason...

:D Hahaa... I'm buying some shares right now! Seriously though, this is a great idea sedate... I used the spray and roll dynamat back in the day when I rocked a Punch 40 with my two JL Audio 10W-1's. I wonder if there's a cost effective solution to soundproofing an entire cab or room as well... :wondering

 

[mets21]

this is an excellent idea, thanks for the link, I should have read this thread first.

 

[Fred]

Hell yeah Shady. Rockford Fosgate all the way back in the day. That dynamat would keep my trunk from vibrating pretty good.

 

[TrichromeFan]

That's some funny shit. I totally covered the shit out of my fan with Dynamat Xtreme. Hmmm, I smell another car stereo guy. (The avatar seems to be another clue)
I will also be building a silencer for my fan in the rafters, for even more quiet. I will have to see if I can remember to bring home my RTA so I can measure the before and after on that one, once I tackle that aspect of my project. I'll keep you posted when I do.

 

[RichieRich]

Fucking love the Dynamat idea, never even crossed my mind and I have used that shit before also. Gonna have to pick up a sheet and see how well it reduces the sound, its a good way to totally seal the fan also from all those small holes.

 

[InvisibleM]

I built a box around mine and it insulates the sound very well. The fan is right on top of the scrubber as well (all contained inside the box, it has 2 scrubbers) The dynamat is a great idea! The insulated ducting also keeps the in room temps a little lower as well. Good tip with the weatherstripping as well.

I've always thought of putting "fan is right on top of the scrubber"! But you are the first person I've seen doing it. Do you have any more info on this?

 

[TKGC]

It just sets right there on top of the filter. I used a 30" long strip of pond liner - one wrap around the can fan flange, set it into the filter opening. Snug - no rattles.