Not So Fearless (or, How I Learned to Love the Fan)

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In machining it's not a new thing to reduce chatter by randomly varying the spindle speed.

Thank you Andersonix. I have recently built a DIY CNC router and first used it to make this project. I did have some slight chatter issues at one point, but changed the spindle speed a little and that stopped it. I'll probably try to add in the PR spindle speed function - that sounds very useful.
 
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Noctua fans are the gold standard for quiet cooling. You might have gained a few dB of noise reduction by not firmly mounting the fan to the wood. Vibrations are coupled directly to the wood, basically making it an inefficient but somewhat effective transducer. Using something like the rubber mounts included with the Noctua to absorb the vibrations may help.
I've run into the same problems with fans vibrating in PC cases. The thin metal is pretty good at turning vibrations into sound. Heavy wood shifts the frequency down, but the stiffness doesn't help. Elastic coupling usually helps a great deal.

Agree on all points!
Some Noctua fans use silicone 'pins' as mounting, very good for decoupling.
 
Using an IR thermometer on the heatsink plate, on the outside. I also have done this on the inside plate, but opening the cover lets some of the heat out, and I'm reading a couple of degrees less.

I realize that the way the fan is positioned, directly under the amp, is not optimal for cooling. This blows air on the perforated bottom plate, through the cooling slots on the top cover, and allows air exchange inside the amp as well. Even so, just a small amount of air movement makes a marked difference in the temperature. The fan rarely reaches the next to highest speed and only once I have seen it hit the highest speed (when we were having a real scorcher of a day here in the Los Angeles basin).
 
Yes. This is the 4th or 5th iteration.

Originally I had a different top cover on the amplifier with a fan in the cover and pulling air through. It did a great job of cooling the inside of the amp. but the heat sinks were still blazing hot.

Next, I had two fans, one on each side of the amp blowing over the heatsinks. That did a great job of cooling the heatsinks, but it was an ugly looking solution having the fans stuck on the side and did nothing for the inside.

Thirdly, I had three fans on the board below the amp. one in the center, and one under each heat sink. That did a great job, and I was happy with it, but I'm an engineer and couldn't leave good enough alone.

Next I started playing with the software on the fan controller board. If you look at the photo of the board, it is v2.0. Version 1.0 had capabilities for 4 fans (even though I only ever used 3) and three temperature sensors. This was before I put in the pseudo-random speed function. I programmed the fans so that initially only the center fan came on and only when the heatsinks came up to a high enough temperature did the heatsink fans come on. What I found was the the outer fans rarely came on. Just having a single fan under the center provided enough airflow.

At that point, I designed a new board with a single fan control and single temp sensor, the experimented with the control software, eventually adding in the pseudo-random function.
 
The Silent Wings fan looks good. It is a couple dB quieter than the one I'm using at very similar performance. Probably worth a look if you are starting from scratch. I have a pile of the others from all my experimenting, so I'd have to stick with what I have.

The Corsair is much higher performance, but a great deal louder. The bearing is the first thing to go on most fans, so these may stack up really well for long term durability. But my primary spec driver was noise, so for that reason, I'd pass on this one.
 
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