Anthrax 8.0 Side Panel Fan Cover - Draft 2 Complete?

This update has actually been a long time coming. I finished the mod in early December as I finally had time after the Black Friday craziness at work. Sadly as you can tell it hasnt been posted until now. This is because there was a week if that until craziness picked back up for the rest of the holiday season, oh retail.


Below is what I deem as a cool mod. I thought it up while taking a shower and getting ready one morning before work. Companies always put panels over not used fan spots on silence oriented cases to make them quieter and look cleaner. I wondered if there was a way to reattach the side panel fan cover for my Nanoxia Deep Silence 6 even though I had already put two Noctua NF-A14 PWM's there.

After running this through my head for the better part of the day at work I had a pretty good idea of what should work. This would  at a minimum make it look cleaner if not possibly also baffle the fan noise. The whole process is below and should work on any case with fan covers with possibly a bit more modification. I may have also already done this on another build in a Fractal Define R5 ;) .

On a another note if your wondering why I even bothered with side panels fans its because they substantially drop case temps, especially air cooled GPU's. I put this up to the fan that they are getting airflow not restricted by a HDD cage or another part of the case. Also there is now exhaust near them so they are getting "cool" ambient air and not possibly sucking in from and outtake.



Alright so first off here is the back side of the side panel fan cover and the two NF-A14 PWM fans mounted in the extra front rad bracket I had for the case. The reason why I add this bracket was that maybe it might add a bit more rigidity to the side panel. Also I had it, so why not use it? I think it also might look better because its not just fans screwed to a side panel.

[img=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v519/TheProfosist/Sorted%20Pictures/Builds/Anthrax%208-0/Anthrax80SidePanelFanCover01.jpg]


As it turns out I actually had the spacing on the fans wrong when mounted the the rad bracket. I decided to make it easy on myself and mount it to the side panel first then add the bracket and fan grills with all the additional hardware. I took the time to align the fan wires so that they were the same length for when I added the fan splitter.

[img=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v519/TheProfosist/Sorted%20Pictures/Builds/Anthrax%208-0/Anthrax80SidePanelFanCover02.jpg]

[img=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v519/TheProfosist/Sorted%20Pictures/Builds/Anthrax%208-0/Anthrax80SidePanelFanCover03.jpg]


Here is the other side of the side panel with the fans mounted. Man do I love how Noctua fans look peering through black vents. They are a nice almost more natural contrast to the black without it being that blatant stark contrast everyone is always pushing. Sadly the filters have to go on top as im going to eliminate dust whenever and however possible. My furry friends do have their downsides sadly.

[img=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v519/TheProfosist/Sorted%20Pictures/Builds/Anthrax%208-0/Anthrax80SidePanelFanCover04.jpg]

[img=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v519/TheProfosist/Sorted%20Pictures/Builds/Anthrax%208-0/Anthrax80SidePanelFanCover05.jpg]


Next we get into the trick. Those fan filters are magnetic which gave me this idea for making the mod removable to still have easy filter cleaning. I had some 5/16in wide by 1/8in thick neodymium magnets left over from another project. Sitting right on top of the fan screws they matched up perfectly to the screws that hold the cover on matched up perfectly to the placement of the magnets.

[img=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v519/TheProfosist/Sorted%20Pictures/Builds/Anthrax%208-0/Anthrax80SidePanelFanCover06.jpg]


Since the magnets need to go in the filters I matched up their polarity to the magnets already in the fan filters. I then drilled out the holes for the fan screws with a 5/16in bit. This allowed me to pop the magnets into the fan filters and the onto the side panel right on top of the fan screws as needed for proper placement.

[img=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v519/TheProfosist/Sorted%20Pictures/Builds/Anthrax%208-0/Anthrax80SidePanelFanCover07.jpg]

[img=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v519/TheProfosist/Sorted%20Pictures/Builds/Anthrax%208-0/Anthrax80SidePanelFanCover08.jpg]


To get enough height for proper airflow I had to stack another magnet on top. This provided just the right amount of clearance. I only need to tweak the screws so that they were screwed in the same amount and all touching the magnets.

[img=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v519/TheProfosist/Sorted%20Pictures/Builds/Anthrax%208-0/Anthrax80SidePanelFanCover09.jpg]

[img=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v519/TheProfosist/Sorted%20Pictures/Builds/Anthrax%208-0/Anthrax80SidePanelFanCover10.jpg]


Here is how its ended up turning out. I think it looks quite good compared to just showing those fan filters. Maybe I might even get some noise improvements as well.

[img=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v519/TheProfosist/Sorted%20Pictures/Builds/Anthrax%208-0/Anthrax80SidePanelFanCover11.jpg]

[img=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v519/TheProfosist/Sorted%20Pictures/Builds/Anthrax%208-0/Anthrax80SidePanelFanCover12.jpg]



Let me know what you guys all think of this this mod. I think it ended up turning out pretty darn well. It was also fairly simple since the metal screws were already on the panel. If you have any questions fell free to ask!