Wisconsin Cooled Personal Computer

Step 3 Prepare your Duct!

This one will probably require some hunting and improvisation. Unless you want to order/buy a professional duct length you will need to find some container that you can make into a tube to direct airflow straight into your computer and not into your toasty room. This website helped my with some inspiration for materials, it has a table with common containers & sizes right here.

I ended up using a section of the tub my favorite fiber supplement comes in although as I mentioned a 120mm fan is about the size of a cd so a cd stack tube would work as well and I actually tried it first but it is a very hard plastic which was too difficult for me to work with.

I had a hard time deciding how to seal the duct onto my case and ended up cutting some cardboard tabs and screwing them onto the case (with the screws already holding the fan) and then just scotch taping them onto the duct plastic. Tape isn't the best but since I used the Caulk Cord to insulate it I think the seal is fine.
This caulk cord is really great and I just realized I could use it not only for this project but for sealing around all the fans inside my case for better control of the air flow. It is removable incase I want to modify this later.

TIPS:
try to get a pretty even cut so there are as few gaps as possible around the edge.
Something I didn't use but I might if it proves a problem later is some foam around the edge that sits against the barrier. This would be great as the computer will be really close to the window and it will be hard to get in there and attach the caulk to seal it against the barrier. (I am not even going to bother until I figure out how much air is really escaping into the room)