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2 Questions on heatercore mounting

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Nick Burns

Your company's computer guy
Joined
Aug 11, 2003
Location
Overland Park, Kansas
I have one of those standard everyday Chieftec Aluminum cases. How do you guys mount your heatercores inside the front of the case? I guess a better question would be, How do you attach it? My second question is, is it better to have the fans sucking air into the case or having them pushing air out of the case?
 
suck in as the air would be cooler from the outside.. and for best performance ppl tend to cut a hole in the front and seal it up with tape or something
 
I agree with orahh cherryp00t. You will get better performance from cooler air outside the case. As for mounting there are two options one is to use threaded rod and pass thought the fins on the heater core. Is much easier but you need to use a CoolShroud. See this Review
 
Definetely have air blowing into the case - especially if your heatercore is mounted in the bottom front of the case, where exhausting does nothing beneficial due to the positioning (hot air rises). If you do a ceiling mount it's a different story - but the cooler air is outside the case, and you want the coolest air you can get going through the radiator.

For mounting - I find that with steel the easiest way to cut your fan hole is with a jigsaw, or a Hole saw, afetr carefully scribing the hole you need to cut. I do all my cutting at my school, where we have an extensive shop room, and I have tons of tools at my disposal - If you don't have access to such things (I bought my 120mm, and 80mm hole saws online, and they were extremely inexpensive - PM me if you want a link) then investing in a dremel tool, a decent hand drill, and a few hole saws is worth your money.

For the shroud mounts it is a good idea to use washers, and self tapping screws (or get a tap, and tap your own threads) - the Chieftec case has honeycombed grills in the front, which you will be chopping through when you cut your fan hole, and I found washers to be neccessary for a solid mount.

I also use bicycle inner tubing underneath the radiator, and between the case contact. It kills vibration, and provides a soft 'bed' for the radiator to rest on, nice if you're lugging your case around for whatever reason.
 
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