I Made A Soundproof Box For My L3+

As promised in my earlier blog post about my L3 here it is in all its glory my home made box for my L3 taking the decibels down from 75 to 45/50ish. It might not sound like huge huge amount but it makes a huge difference in being able to live with it. I made the box big enough to have two side by side and the 4″ ducting works well to extract all heat and surprisingly inside the box does not get that hot, the L3 sits at about 57 to 60 degrees.

Excuse the mess, I have taken over the kids play room

with my new box. I made the box from MDF they were actually off cuts from my local DIY store that I managed to pick up for 50p each which was a bargain. I screwed these together and made a lid to fit on top.

Once it was all sealed with a lid it was time to drill some holes, now people vary on what they drill but I wanted to keep mine simple and as I knew I was going to get ducting I thought I would have entry and exit holes rather than a top vent

I drilled two 4″ holes either end one for entry and the other for exhaust, and also a small hole in the side to bring the wires into. I was considering mounting the PSU on the side or top of the box but in all honesty the box was to damn big to do this without extending wires. Next was to put the L3 in make sure its all ok

L3 fitted perfect with enough room easily to fit another next to it which could then have additional holes drilled to allow for the ducting to be fitted. I have the completed picture which I will show next but before I completed I covered the inside with car insulation to provide some sound proofing. I probably would not bother with that next time and just either get some acoustic squares or jsut use something else. The L3 had already quietened down alot and all the insulation did was increase my temps without making much difference in noise. Once I fitted my insulated ducting that made the biggest difference, its 4″ pipe wrapped in insulation to soften the fan and air travel noise