Fan Shrouds - Make your stale brown fans, or your generic led fans look better!

[InsaneJihad]

I'm currently in the process of designing a new product for all the people who are performance yet presentationally conscious. The main thing that puts me off buying noctua or similar fans is the pure ugliness of the pale browns and I'm sure allot of people will agree with me.

 

So I've made the first draft of a shroud to encase the fan but not restrict airflow, I'm currently getting quotes to get this prototyped.

 

So far I am split between Three materials; Steel sheet metal, Aluminium sheet metal, and ABS plastic (3D printed) 

 

Either option I go for the plans for the 3D printer I will keep updated and release them for free on this forum alone.

 

 

The reason I am making this post is that i have not seen a product that achieves this goal before and would like to give it a try however I'm not the most experienced designer and would love the help of the community, 

 

What features would you want on a fan shroud or even one at all?  Such as a slot to slide in a fan filter, or bespoke logos and text stamps.

[Laputacake]

I think a slide in filter is an awesome idea and a fan grill.

[DavidTheWin]

That's actually a pretty neat idea. As far as material choice goes, you can have options although if you had to go for one at first I'd say a good quality plastic since that will suit most things and won't put off too many people. Things I'd suggest are to avoid obscuring airflow from the fan since most fans attach the fan hub slightly differently and also to avoid obscuring LED light if the fan has a translucent frame for example. Having a slot in fan filter is a really good idea although you'd have to avoid adding in too much bulk, remember that most fan filters are attached to the case and a lot of cases lack sufficient room for say a radiator plus fan plus fan filter attached to the fan. To be honest I'd probably buy some, thinking of doing my next build in a grey case where standard Noctuas wouldn't colour match, but the lower end redux grey fans would but I don't want the performance hit of dropping down to those. If I could get a grey fan shroud to do essentially the same thing I'd be pretty happy.

[InsaneJihad]

Yeah I think plastic is more appealing as it's much easier and cheaper to produce different colours, so far the plane is to to encase the top, bottom, sides, and front with the shroud leaving a clear and open cut out to allow air to pass through as it would with out a shroud the back side would be completely open and the shroud will be flush with the fan to avoid any issues mounting, I need to research fan filters better as I wouldn't want the shroud to be unnecessary bulky (as it stands the fan adds 6mm to each side 5mm of material with a 1mm gap), perhaps place some neodymium magnets in the corners for a magnetic filter to be used, or something that can be clipped onto the front.

I'm not sure how the shroud should be mounted to the fan itself yet, friction may be an option. any ideas?

[spwath]

Rubber silencers.

[InsaneJihad]

Rubber silencers.

Yeah good idea, I was think of using foam/ rubber pads to provide enough friction to hold the fan in the shroud. First I need to get a prototype made to experiment with mounting options, I want to avoid using and permanent or visible option.

[Nup]

can we get concept pics? it sounds pretty cool  

[CaptainZul]

sadly noctua fans sacrifices looks for performance. even though they have a new all black fans however with their poop brown rubber pads, they are hella expensive, but still, the technology in the new fans are phenomenal.

 

post the pics! Super cool

[McMurderMonkey]

If this includes an easily removable filer and vibration dampening, then you are on to a winner.

[InsaneJihad]

The designs are in the first stages and I wanted to get a basic version made so i can measure things up better and figure what I can do with it, I've been quoted £115 for the thing to be prototyped which is a little more that I was expecting, So i need to shop around a bit. If you have a 3d printer and your want to help I could really need you.