General > General Technical Chat
Drywall without drilling a Hole?
<< < (4/5) > >>
ebastler:

--- Quote from: Lord of nothing on October 07, 2023, 02:28:46 pm ---The Problem is since its the Basement I cant drill any hole into the Base Concrete Block and if I would drill into the Concrete Ceiling my Dad would kill me... 

--- End quote ---

What exactly would be the problem with a few drill holes for wall plugs (anchors)? It's not like you need to drill all the way through the wall or ceiling... You will not weaken the structure to any significant extent, and won't cause water to leak through the walls either.
rdl:
Do you have any home improvement stores or hardware stores there? Go look for rigid foam insulation. Comes in sheets like plywood but cheaper and much lighter. Very easy to cut with a utility knife and you can use duct tape or just about any adhesive with it.
Nominal Animal:
Instead of making a wall to create a separate room, make a cupboard/box for the rack instead.

Although server rack hardware noise profile tends to be dominated by high-frequency noise, start by eliminating low-frequency conducted noise.
You do this using something that builders call a floating slab: a thick layer of rockwool or similar insulating wool on top of the base concrete, with a reinforced slab of concrete on top of that.  The only contact between the concrete slab and the concrete foundation is the insulating wool.  Minimum thicknesses depend on the area, but knowledgeable building engineers can give you exact figures.  Your box then builds on top of that floating slab.

(It is how in e.g. apartment buildings you can completely stop conducted noise through floors.  With a correctly done floating slab, you can walk with wood clogs, and the downstair neighbour will hear absolutely nothing.  It does add weight and cost, as typical floor slabs are at least 4" thick, also reducing room height by about 10".)

High-frequency noise can be absorbed by normal acoustic panels.  Air cooling intake and exhaust are your next focus –– unless you build a rack out of a fridgerator with sufficient continuous cooling capability for your rack hardware, say used restaurant cooling cabinets or similar.  Soft foam baffles and dust covers, and as large fan diameters as you can fit, can help a lot.

I've built silent PC enclosures (but latest one almost a decade ago now).  The tricks there are similar: you use an outer box as the shell (this corresponds to your existing basement space), then an insulated inner heavy box for the actual hardware.  You carefully design the airflow so that it has enough turbulence to ensure all surfaces and components are kept cool, and also to hinder sound propagation.  Using convection (hot air rising upwards) can help, but can also create laminar flows with "backwater pools" outside the flow where the air does not mix and just heats up.  Foam baffles work well, as they also absorb higher frequencies.  Cheap soft closed- and open-cell foams work well, and you can use gasket silicone (non-acid curing; preferably platinum-curing ones, like you'd use with electronics) with such foams to "glue" e.g. case fans, stopping all conducted noise.  Personally, I'm still looking for cheap very low durometer (i.e. soft, spongy) silicones a 'hobbyist' can use; the ones I have easy access to here are automotive (gasket silicones) or household (but these often have antifungals and tend to be acid-curing) silicones, with hobby shop casting and makeup/effect silicones either too expensive or sold in too large buckets.

That said, my own limit for furniture-hidden "silent" PC enclosures is around 100-200 watts of heat produced, and for anything substantially more, I'd actually go for compressor cooling –– the fridge approach.  Running that does cost relatively more, depending on the hardware of course, and you need to use e.g. desiccants (larger silica packets you can dry out in an oven, for example) to keep the air inside dry and not condensing to the surfaces and ruining your electronics.
Gyro:

--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on October 08, 2023, 05:51:28 pm ---Instead of making a wall to create a separate room, make a cupboard/box for the rack instead.

--- End quote ---

Hah, that put's me in mind of the very noisy comms and server rack (kindly provided by the US IT department), that we had when we were setting up our UK office. For the first few weeks we were crammed into a single room in a serviced office complex. The shielding proved very effective in noise reduction, but was prone to a certain amount of unauthorised tampering.
Gregg:
If I wanted to build walls like you describe, I would get some adjustable support poles similar to these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08C55QZPT
I would put high density foam on the outside of the header and footer to take up any irregularities; something like Armaflex which may be cheaper to buy as pipe insulation tubing. https://www.amazon.com/Armaflex-APT03434-Pipe-Insulation-Lineal/dp/B00FY4WSOIAfter getting the header and footer located, individual studs can be cut to fit.  Depending on the installation, I might leave some posts inside the walls with removable access panels to tighten them if needed.  I’d put everything together with screws, not nails.  The drywall doesn’t need to have the screws mudded over, but should be taped at the seams; just use a thin coat of mud and if it needs to be leveled off, use a damp sponge and wide straight mud spatula to scrape off the high spots, no sanding needed.

There are some types of hot glue that claim to be removable; try in an area that won’t be noticed first.
Navigation
Message Index
Next page
Previous page
There was an error while thanking
Thanking...

Go to full version
Powered by SMFPacks Advanced Attachments Uploader Mod