# Wood flamability - painted vs unpainted



## chandler48 (Jun 5, 2017)

IF the interior reaches combustibility rate to burn wood, paint won't help or hinder it. You should make sure the box is vented both bottom and top to allow air movement to cool the components. You could possibly install a computer fan to assist in this.


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## mark sr (Jun 13, 2017)

Latex paints might slightly slow down combustion and oil base might slightly speed it up but it won't really make much difference .... unless you painted it with fire retardant paint and even then that is formulated more to stop a fire than to prevent it. As Larry said you are better off cooling the interior!


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## FrodoOne (Mar 4, 2016)

Red Squirrel said:


> Basically I'm building a wooden computer case that will potentially have over 1kw of power going into it, and debating on if I should bother even painting the inside. Ex: if something malfunctions and sparks out or fans fail etc.


Why are you building a wooden computer case - to house a computer which will _*surely*_ be built on a metal framed "case" with sides?
Such a case with sides in position is likely to contain any overheating problem until overload protection or component destruction occurs.

Any box to contain the case should be at least as well vented as the case itself - or the lack of such ventilation may *cause/contribute to* the problem you are considering.


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## w0j0 (Dec 29, 2017)

As mentioned, proper ventilation is crucial to keeping electronic components happy. An aspect that you may not have considered is electromagnetic interference. Computers generate quite a lot of EMI and are sensitive to the inference of outside sources. It is for this reason that most commercially produced computer cases have metal encasing the components of the computer. Even if the case is plastic, you can be sure that there are metal panels behind the plastic. These panels are ground planes and are joined together, electrically, and grounded to produce a structure known as a Farraday cage. Basically, it intercepts stray EMI and bleeds it to ground.
Are you planning anything like this in your case? If not I would recommend it. Possible considerations would be to use flashing to line your wooden case or possibly paint it with silver or aluminum paint and provide a chassis ground to each plane. I'd suspect that either of these methods would aid in dissipating some heat, reducing the exposure of the wood substrate.

Sent from my mobile look-at device


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## SeniorSitizen (Sep 10, 2012)

Ask your paint supplier about _intumescent _paint coatings.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intumescent


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## Red Squirrel (Jun 29, 2009)

Oh I'm definitely cooling it. Probably going to use 3x 200CFM fans that will be temperature controlled, but I will try some lower speed fans first to see if it's enough as I already have some. This is more in case of a fault, like if something shorts out and it shoots sparks etc. Or a component like capacitor decides to catch on fire. That kind of thing. Basically if any kind of fault happens. 

I eventually want to learn metal working so I can do these kind of things in metal but wood is the material I know how to work with, have tools for, and know where to get. 

I had thought about the fire retardant paint as well but that's probably special order. Might get some for future projects though. Ended up just going with regular latex paint anyway. I really don't foresee any issues it was more a curiosity. I've had tons of computers running 24/7 and none ever caught on fire. Though there has been the oddball recalls on certain parts that can catch on fire but even that is quite rare. 

I was thinking about EMI but I imagine most parts have to be built to certain standards. A typical computer case is not a faraday cage and actually won't do much. You can put your cell phone in a metal enclosure and still receive a call, if the enclosure is not specifically designed to be RF proof. Need RF gasket etc on any openings.


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## mark sr (Jun 13, 2017)

> I had thought about the fire retardant paint as well but that's probably special order.


I don't recall fire retardant paint being special order although it probably is in small markets BUT as far as I know it can only be purchased in 1 and 5 gallon containers.


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## FrodoOne (Mar 4, 2016)

Red Squirrel said:


> a wooden computer case that will potentially have over 1kw of power going into it,


I still cannot get my head around the image of that which the above "quote" implies.

i. e. That there is a "wooden case" (of unknown dimensions) with *over* 1 kW being dissipated by equipment within it!

(However, I never did consider that the "case" itself would be dissipating energy at such a rate.)


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## Red Squirrel (Jun 29, 2009)

It will be mining cryptocurrency and house 6 GPUs. Those use around 150-200w each, then motherboard, cpu etc. So I figure roughly 1kw worth of equipment, which really translates into heat. Though with proper fans I'm not worried about that, but if something goes wrong there is the potential of over 1kw worth of electrical short going on so I am worried a bit about any sparks or small flames that could potentially occur. But the odds of that are rather small. More or less curious if paint is better than bare wood for that kind of situation. But I guess if actual flames form then it would be hot enough to just melt the paint. 

These are the fans that will be cooling this: 

https://www.mechatronics.com/pdf/MD1238.pdf

The case in question:




Suppose I should look at learning metal working though if I will build more custom cases like this. I could at very least line it with galvanized steel.


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## FrodoOne (Mar 4, 2016)

Red Squirrel said:


> I could at very least line it with galvanized steel.


You could line it with "Fibre cement" sheeting, which is easy to "score and cut", light, cheap and "fireproof".

[GPU ? ? ?
A *CPU* (central processing unit) has often been called the brains of the PC. 
However, a GPU is a "graphics processing unit".]


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## Red Squirrel (Jun 29, 2009)

Oh never thought about fibreboard. Maybe next time I'll do that. And yeah GPU is graphics processing unit. It is better for certain types of operations so some systems will use 6-8+ of them to work together to process complex data.


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