I want to stick two fans together

[GV2NIX]

I'm trying to find the best way to stick two fans together back to back without using screws. Basically, I want to use some kind of soft adhesive material (about 1/8" or 1/16" thick) or use a soft non-adhesive material and add apply the adhesive. The goal here is for the "gasket" to be soft (in order to absorb vibrations from the fans) while still having a strong enough bond to last a decent length of time (at least a year or so).

Any ideas? I thought of using foam rubber and super glue, but I want to be able to remove it in the future. Is there some kind of maleable sealant that I can use? Should I wrap double-sided tape around neoprene rubber? All suggestions welcome!

 

[Benvanz]

liquid silicone (used in plumbing)....it drys still soft....but it can be broken if needed

 

[subtotal]

which fans are you using

 

[GV2NIX]

liquid silicone (used in plumbing)....it drys still soft....but it can be broken if needed

Never worked with it before, will I be able to apply a thick enough layer? I need a moderately thick layer to absorb shock. Do you know how rigid it is compared to foam rubber?

which fans are you using

I'm using Vantec Stealth fans. They're great and quiet, but unfortunately they're not balanced very well. The noise from vibration when placed against hard surfaces totally defeats the purpose. Even when using grommets, "quiet mounting" hardware, or other buffers between screws, they still produce audible vibration. So I'm experimenting with my version of "soft mounting."

 

[johnny5c]

I use silicone on my case windows and it works great, better than glue or tape plus it's easy to remove. It's the stuff you would use to seal the gap around you bath tub or other pluming fixtures. Stays soft when dry and easy to clean any excess.

 

[GV2NIX]

Use any gasket material of choice.

When the fans are "ganged" you'll have two interior fan flanges proximal and two exterior fan flanges.

Secure each of the 4 attachment points of the interior flanges with two cable ties ... for each point, cut the head from one cable tie and use it as the terminator for the second cable tie.

Hey, thanks for the suggestion! I actually tried that and it still makes noises from vibrating. It's so annoying, I wish I could just balance the fans myself, but that's not possible. They literally need to be totally soft mounted to avoid any vibration noise.

 

[Gnufsh]

AFAIk there's not a lot of performance improvememnnt from fan stacking in most cases (unless the fans spin in opposte directions).


See this thread for an interesting discussion:
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=413491
and this one:
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=360329

You may also want to check out the stickies in the cooling forum, I think they mention something about it as well.

 

[Sleepy_Steve]

if they dont spin in opisate directions, you can consider counter rotating fans... like the hard to find deltas for example. Those stack well, but i dont realy call them 'stealthy' at least not the counter rotating kind.

 

[GV2NIX]

Thanks for the links. Yeah, I know stacking fans doesn't do anything, but I'm jus messing around with something to see if it'll work. Also, I eventually want to soft mount my fans to my rad. I have a BIM II, so I'm going to soft mount 4 of them.

 

[Cheator]

Speaking from a great deal experience with those Stealths, it won't help too much. I had 2 of those fans and attached them together, VERY securly i mgiht add, with zip ties. It lowered my temps by roughly 3 C. However, for airflow, I can only assume it would help.

I would suggest twistties as well as that foamy stuff for crafts around the edges of the fans.

 

[GV2NIX]

Any way I can attach the fans with just the foamy stuff by applying some kind of adhesive? Is there a really gummy double-sided tapeish thing I can wrap around a gasket or something?

 

[Cheator]

there IS double sided tape! But I would only recomend twist ties because they are easy to take off, replace, etc...

 

[GV2NIX]

How about putty, would that not stick well to smooth plastic surfaces?

 

[GV2NIX]

putty would probably hold itself to a fan housing, but I doubt that it would reliably hold one fan to another.

GV2NIX, you're being a bit coy about the application, so forgive me if this is very far off the mark ...

the suggestions that you've received so far have embraced your original idea that the fans must be tightly bound. If they are unbalanced, the effects of the imbalances will be amplified (in my experience, noise adds).

suggest that you consider using a thicker dampening medium (say a dense carpet pad material) trimmed to the appropriate "o-ring" shape to place between the fans and between the "first fan" and whatever you're attaching it to ... join the two fans at the proximal flanges using all-thread rod and resilient o-rings. the all-thread, o-rings, nuts would not be tightened to compress the dampening medium (just snug). Alternatively, the "two cable ties" method may suffice.

again, may be way off the mark for your application, but we don't really know what that is

Haha, sorry if my question is irritating. I didn't go into details about sticking fans together because I didn't think it would be relevant, but I guess I'll elaborate.

Basically I'm looking into sticking two fans together for is a science experiment. A friend of mine wants two 80mm fans stuck together for the experiment. No idea why, that's just what he said. But, more importantly, I, myself, am experimenting soft mounting my stealths to my rad in such a way as to avoid noise from vibration.

I've tried mounting them using screws, grommets and pads to attempt to isolate the hard mounting material from the vibrating fans, but it's still too rigid and there is vibrating noise. So, I figured that the only way to avoid that is to use a completely soft mounting medium such as, as you said, a carpet pad, foam rubber, or some other type of padding. The only problem is the adhesive, I'm not sure how to stick the padding to the fan and rad without using something that's going to make the mounting rigid. Ideally, I would like some foam rubber gasket about 1/8" thick already coated with adhesive (like the stuff that adhesive-backed foam rubber has), but I doubt they sell anything like that.

 

[attack]

get new fans, that's BS that they vibrate like that. Top motor sells very low db fans that push good cfm, cost 3 bucks each, and work great.
As for sticking 2 together, zip ties man! so simple and easy it's simple!

As for mounting TOP MOTOR fans, use whatever you did before but with these better/cheaper fans you won't need to worry bout vibration.

 

[GV2NIX]

Top motor? never used their fans before. At the time I bought them, the Stealths had the best noise/cfm ratio that I could find. Got a link for the Top motor fans? If they're really better, then I'm definitely interested!

 

[9mmCensor]

duct tape.

 

[Benvanz]

well when liquid plumbing silicone dries...u can poke it and it will absorb it...its kinda like a little harder than jello

 

[GV2NIX]

well when liquid plumbing silicone dries...u can poke it and it will absorb it...its kinda like a little harder than jello

Oh really? I was under the imrpession that it was harder, cool, I'll look into it

I can't find Top-Motor fans anywhere... Does anyone have a link and specs?

 

[GV2NIX]

Haha ok, I wasn't sure what definition of coy you meant.

I looked into some Top-Motor fans. It seems that, at least according to the specs, that Top-Motor fans move less air and are louder than the Vantec Stealth. These are the three main specs that I found

RPM--CFM--dB(A)
2200 23.12 27.07
2600 27.94 30.70
2900 31.96 34.14

Do you know of any other Top-Motor fans? Maybe these aren't the ones that ajrettke was talking about.