RF shield cage for hardware?

I can see why people use a closet to locate the home network modems, routers, switches, power supplies and all that. I'd like to find some smallish metal box to do the same hardware on a desktop, and that wouldn't seem difficult to put together. But those high frequencies have short wavelengths and if my shielding knowledge is decent I'm not sure you could engineer it to be full shielded whilst somehow keeping it cool.

This tangent is inspired by a Netgear router and switch here; both produce a very high freq pitch when turned on.

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-= Cloud 9 =-

JoeyPogoPlugE02 Wrote:
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> I can see why people use a closet to locate the
> home network modems, routers, switches, power
> supplies and all that. I'd like to find some
> smallish metal box to do the same hardware on a
> desktop, and that wouldn't seem difficult to put
> together. But those high frequencies have short
> wavelengths and if my shielding knowledge is
> decent I'm not sure you could engineer it to be
> full shielded whilst somehow keeping it cool.
>
> This tangent is inspired by a Netgear router and
> switch here; both produce a very high freq pitch
> when turned on.

Did you try the ferrite core donuts? I have them on a few of my sound equpiments. Wonder if it helps with this Netgear router.

-bodhi
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@joey

if those devices are making high pitch squealing that isnt fan related....they are faulty

bodhi Wrote:
> Did you try the ferrite core donuts? I have them
> on a few of my sound equpiments. Wonder if it
> helps with this Netgear router.


Yeah really, super resourceful idea.

Gravelrash Wrote:
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> @joey
>
> if those devices are making high pitch squealing
> that isnt fan related....they are faulty

Yeah it's more pronounced on the router, which, at 100Mbps is being phased-out as my favorite, but has sentimental value because of great Samba. Until Pogo rivals it i'll miss the thumbnails when viewing pictures. As for the Netgear switch, i just hooked it up and don't hear it anymore. The router is very likely capacitors and I might re-cap it if the opportunity arises.

For now the ferrite core donuts are a paradigm shift, literally thinking outside the box. Probably one in 10 cables I've hoarded has some ferrite donut implementation. Couldn't hurt at all to replace them in any sensitive area. Who knows the ways an electronic appliance might even amplify somehting that could be nipped in the bud. Glad I asked you guys and thanks.

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-= Cloud 9 =-

From your post, it appears you are more concerned with an audible whine than RF interference. I am a ham radio operator. My PogoPlug E02s are quite quiet audibly -- no fan, but the attached disks do make a soft whirring sound and I hear some head movement when they are active. It's not objectionable; I actually rather enjoy knowing that they're doing something. I've never noticed any RF interference from the Pogo itself, but my hamming has caused the USB disk subsystem on the Pogo to lock up several times. 2m operation (146 Mhz) was particularly troublesome. I resolved the problem by installing a ferrite core on the USB cable from the disk to the Pogo, and rerouting the cable.

It's my experience that RFI problems generally arise from the cabling either radiating or absorbing RF energy, and it is just as important, if not more so, to address the cabling issues as it is to shield the components themselves.

Thanks restamp,

It's an interesting real use case for these ferrite cores! For me, I have a Rocketfish wireless speaker pair used as rear left/right speakers in 5.1 sound configuration. To eliminate the RFI problem, I put them on all power cable and speaker cable coming in and going out of the main unit and its receiver. It has been working for several years and I completely forgot that I have installed them until reading Joey's post! that's how well it works.

-bodhi
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/16/2015 03:48PM by bodhi.