PC case fan

Published

December 27, 2023

Background

Joey Fox at https://itsairborne.com/ has a good guide to build a PC Case Fan version of the CR Box. Which is what I followed to build this one:

This design involves a bit of wood working, which is not my forte, so I came up with a similar version that used 3D printed plates.

3D printed plate version

Rather than woodworking, a 3D printed plate can be used as well. This design is based on a 3D-printed customizable fan grill cover. This thingiverse posted project contains OpenSCAD code to create a wide variety of fan covers. Several modifications have adapted it to a CR-box:

  • Increased the plate size to have overlap for fitting to MERV 13 filters but an extra border of 12.2 mm.
  • Increased plate size border to 7.5 mm to fit within the 20in length of the filter and avoid interference when panels are next to each other.
  • Removed rounded corners so that plates fit together more tightly.

These modifications can be found here. Each panel is “welded” together using a soldering iron.

Single printed plate

Welded plates with fans mounted

CR box with 3D printed plates to hold the fans

An additional improvement was to put some pre-filter material over the filters to catch animal hair.

CR box with pre-filter to catch animal hair

Air flow

Power draw

At full power, draws 11-12 Watts, as measured with a Kill-a-Watt.

References