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HEPA filtered case?

A

arigo

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 1, 2005
Messages
153
Are any cases made that are HEPA filtered? I couldn't find any, and I was thinking about making one.

My plan was to just buy a fairly standard case and just mount a small HEPA filter system to the side of the case. Does anyone have any suggestions on the case to start with that would work out well? Does anyone have any suggestions on what they think would be the best way to go about it?

It seems like a great idea to me for two reasons: 1. It'll keep the dust out of my case and 2. It'll filter my air for me at the same time. Efficiency at it's best!
 
Interesting idea. I would have thought HEPA filters too restrictive to use unless you had some pretty noisy fans. But I'm not familiar with the air filtering system you mention or how loud they are.. nor in fact how restrictive a HEPA filter even is. It'd sure be great to never have to clean the case out. Good luck :)
 
I mean mounting something like this to the side of the case: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000N9CPQK They aren't teribly quiet, especially at high speed, but I would only need a ton of airflow when playing a game or something anyway.
 
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if you want to go with a filter like that, you're better off just keeping the case a couple of feet off the floor, vacuuming often and keeping a filter like that on a shelf somewhere.
 
It's a pretty silly and futile effort if you don't seal all the tiny openings and cracks in the typical PC case. If you filter case with high airflow, you'll find that the air will just find easier ways in - like through the openings around your ports on the back of your motherboard.

HEPA is useless when the spaces between the drive bay cover/panels, under your optical drive, your motherboard backplate, the spaces between the case walls, the spaces between PCI slot covers, etc. are all magnitudes larger for air and particles to travel through than in a HEPA filter. Like electricity, things will just find a shorter route. You'll get tons of accumulation of dust in all these areas.
 
Spare-Flair said:
It's a pretty silly and futile effort if you don't seal all the tiny openings and cracks in the typical PC case. If you filter case with high airflow, you'll find that the air will just find easier ways in - like through the openings around your ports on the back of your motherboard.
Click to expand...

Unless the fan blows in?
 
it's not 'silly' if it helps to dramatically reduce dust in your case.. those tiny cracks may let some dust and particulates get in but your still better off than not doing this mod.. i would love it.. i live in a cloud of dust.. its freakin everywhere i hate it.. an overall better solution may simply to buy a high quality hepa air purifier for the room that the pc resides in.. which is exactly what i need to do :)
 
Have to think of your own health as well as the computers. Which one comes first, is a matter of priorities :)
 
Spare-Flair said:
It's a pretty silly and futile effort if you don't seal all the tiny openings and cracks in the typical PC case. If you filter case with high airflow, you'll find that the air will just find easier ways in - like through the openings around your ports on the back of your motherboard.

HEPA is useless when the spaces between the drive bay cover/panels, under your optical drive, your motherboard backplate, the spaces between the case walls, the spaces between PCI slot covers, etc. are all magnitudes larger for air and particles to travel through than in a HEPA filter. Like electricity, things will just find a shorter route. You'll get tons of accumulation of dust in all these areas.
Click to expand...

you are supposed to design the case ventilation so that you are putting more air into the case than you are taking out.(positive pressure). this way air escapes from those tiny cracks instead of being drawn in through them. ideally all the air going into the case should be filtered before the fans. thus keeping the dust to a minimum.
 
I'd go with the elevated option too just to see how much that helps first. I was surprised to see how much dust reduction there was just by moving the case from the floor to my desk.
 
I cant really recommend a HEPA system for such an application, not only is air flow an issue for them as they get dirtier but the deltaP or drop in pressure is fairly significant from the outset and you'd need to have a fan system capable of generating pressure as well as flow.

I admit it is a great idea, and perhpas a modified vs of the small square internal HEPAs used in cannister vacuum cleaners to keep the motor area clean might be a place to start. These are about 140 mm square. Keep in mind the flows and pressure associated with a vacuum cleaner.
 
What do you want the HEPA filter for? Do you suffer from dust mite allergies? If so, putting the case up off the ground is a bad idea since it will then be CLOSER TO YOUR BREATHING AREA. For the most part, if you suffer from less severe dust allergies, the medical field suggests leaving the computer on the floor. Besides, there is still alot of dust in a room unless you go up to the ceiling... hey... that could work...

Adding a HEPA filter to a computer is hard. I looked into it. The filters themselves are too restrictive for normal axial fans. You could mount a centrifugal blower style filter to the case, but they dont move alot of air usually, unless you go big, or use multiple units which ends up being either loud, or expensive.

I would look at one of two options as I did if its for allergies. I have a severe dust mite allergy, my test was 'the most severe case' my doctors have ever seen (they put 4++ on the normal test ranking of 0-4, 0 being nothing, 4 being severe)... as in 'I might end up living in a bubble someday'. One, you can keep the computer in a seperate room and run cables to where you work (if its an allergy thing). The thing is, then you have to get up and go into the other room just to change a disk or turn it on/off, etc... and not everything you attach to a computer can be adapted to long cables easily. And when you do go into that other room, you are then exposing yourself anyways. Two, you might consider a passive radiator-water cooling setup. This way, you can replace moving air and fans with large radiators which dont blow around dust. Here is the massive passive external water cooling loop I made:
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1399592

Its a bit overboard... made for overclocking... handles about 2000 watts of heat with ease (I can cool 2 computers on the one system). Im sure a system half as large or even smaller would be plenty to cool a normal system. The enermax PSU is still running a fan, but for a PSU fan even, its nothing. If you get an 80 plus rated PSU with a Silver or Gold efficiency rating, at 500 watts the PSU will be putting out less than 50 watts of heat... less than many north-bridge chipsets, which means a fan is almost pointless. My case runs NO fans though other than the Enermax. I can feel the results in my breathing, and my case collects almost no dust (just the normal stuff in the air that settles, mostly on the top).
The case is also dead silent (you can hear the PSU if you put your head really close, and the optical drives are the loudest things by far when in use... my Samsung F1 drives are rather silent). There are ready-made passive kits by Zalman, Innovatek, etc... I think in the end a passive watercooled system would be easier to make, and most likely alot less expensive than adding HEPA filters... any EFFECTIVE addition of HEPA filters would likely cost you a good $500-$800.
 
Here's a thing re: filters being too restrictive for any given intake fan...

- Make the fan suck through a number of filters arranged in parallel, dividing the load between the filters, making less effective load on the fan. I think.... 4 filters quarters the load.

Or get a ruddy great sheet of it if you can and 'arrange' something...

EDIT:

I nearly did this once: (Just not with HEPA filter)

One or two fans sucking on such a large surface area of filter can't be bad?

bigsidefilter1.jpg
 
Last edited:
undertheradar said:
One, you can keep the computer in a seperate room and run cables to where you work (if its an allergy thing). The thing is, then you have to get up and go into the other room just to change a disk or turn it on/off, etc... and not everything you attach to a computer can be adapted to long cables easily.
Click to expand...

I've done something like this. For HTPC stuff, at least to keep things quiet anyway, I used double-gang wireplates to pass cables through the wall. Worked great.
Cat5, HDMI, USB. The cables weren't that long since the rack was literally on the other side of the wall from the entertainment center.

the plates looked like these, one on each side. They were about $5 each at mom&pop store here.... a bit more than some other places but still cheap enough.
WPCM0002.jpg


There's something called Wireport now that works even better.
 
You might have better luck with a furnace filter. They seem to start at 10x10x1 inch size.
 
furnace filters are still too restrictive I would think. Two layers of screen material could work, or just get a real air cleaner. Not many options exist to filter out fine dust.
 
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