Hello everyone! Thomas here. Things are still going with the fan, it's just going slow. Thank you for your patience all this time! I'm not in a superyacht, at least yet c: I hope you're all having a wonderful day!
I like the idea of performance based points. Baseline is the A12X25 = 100%. All others would be based on its baseline. This would allow for rating based on actual performance of each fan regardless of the competition per episode. Thanks for keeping this going!
I think redoing some of the geared fans in resin might be a fun episode. FDM gears (especially small gears) are very noisy, typically have quite high friction, and are mechanically weaker than resin, once cured fully. I think, even if none of them actually bring real competition to the table, just seeing them work a little better and not explode in your face would be pretty entertaining.
Please can you test the velocity stacks you have with a stock A12x25? It would be super interesting to see if just adding the stacks to off the shelf fans could improve case airflow/cooling.
Shrouds help, it used to be a standard to have shroud on watercooling rad. It was proven to improve watertemps by a bit. There was a big comparison on xtremesystems where one guy tested bunch of fans with various shroud thicknesses but since xs forum died thats lost knowledge. Images with results dont show anymore : /
Gotta have categories for future ones. The Acceleron got beat hard, but its also the only normal sized one. I suggest a slim 15mm, normal 25mm, extreme with shrouds and stuff, and then a fun category for anything that puts style before substance. Then I also recommend we chart the results between noise and airflow and do a noise normalized test.
Yeah, the intake/exhaust adds so much. I’d also love to see how the acceleron would perform if it had an intake/exhaust as well. It would be cool to compare each fan across different conditions too. Like measuring the cheater with no intake/exhaust, and with each individually.
Most of those extra parts can be assembled onto the acceleron, we should see if any of those help it be better. Also see if without the extra parts would the cheater still beat it. Realistically, you may put the acceleron in your pc, but definitely not the others, they're too huge. But all of them can work without the extras, too, so it would be realistic(and fair) to try them "naked".
@@jamesstephens9501 acceleron has the looks, is compact and still performs really well. The other fans add allot of bulk which isn’t good when building pcs which is why the acceleron is perfect when building a pc as you get more space to add more components. If the other fans didn’t have intakes and exhaust the acceleron would def beat them.
I'm not a long term follower of the channel but your passion and joy at the pursuit of an engineering design quest is just SO entertaining. Keep on doing what you're doing.
This was sweet! As others have mentioned, while I think the shrouds are cool in terms of pushing boundaries, I personally enjoy episodes a lot more when there's no extra assemblies on the height of the fans, because most cases wouldn't support their installation. Granted, generally I doubt people are cannibalizing A12x25's anyways, but I could absolutely see a world in which a company does produce a fanless hub designed for custom 3d prints, there's obviously a big community of us. In any case, the testing methodology of including both radiator and non-radiator testing would be excellent to include in future episodes if it's not too onerous!
Although I like the no rules competition next season could have the contender split in 2 categories: one with fans with no shrouds and within the limits of the Noctua’s housing and another free of rules.
CPU radiator would be almost perfect for shroud application if there is enough space left for RAM. Front and back panel can be alright too but i doubt that direct airflow would benefit case circulation
Completely agree. It's cool to see the shroud designs but they really don't interest me, so a 2 category list would be best, normal sized fans and supersized ones.
@@AndreZelak I like this, but I'd do three categories: OEM spec (single piece fan that fits within the original housing), OEM+ spec (single piece, can extend beyond the housing), and Custom spec (multi-piece, no restrictions). That way you can get a really good idea of the engineering of a given fan based on apples-to-apples comparison.
great to see my fan on the show again, thanks for the test we've all been waiting for. I'm not surprised I got 3rd because I optimized that fan for air coolers. I do think that that could have been a nice additional test but I'm glad the community got their answer. Thanks again major, keep up the good work
I would like to see what a 3d printed case with airflow in mind would look like. I'd think i'd be fun to see how it could be done on small print beds and assembled
@@FastSloth87 I've seen multiple atx or eatx printed cases. But most use some sort of tubing to make most of the frame, since printing all of it would be wastefull and weaker.
This has been the best reality tv show ever. Multiseason arcs, real tension, teams forming in the crowd, and real tests to determine winners, not voting.
This is great the resin printer really helped, and increased the unswirlers fan blade quality. I am extremely satisfied with my design because it achieved more than I anticipated it would ever achieve.
@@mandowarrior123 dont know, but I think that the weigth is not the problem, but I think I mirrored the intake, the blades should be in the other direction, I have to check
That Einstein head is crazy! I love the comparison between airflow and static pressure, it's really interesting to see how the positions shifted, especially the Slug Mk2
I miss the rpm and noise lvl in the challenge, that would have an additional impact on the variety of possible points and possibly ranks?! Love the content. Waiting four the next 😊
I think there should be an isolation of the fans from shroud assemblies. The fans tested in isolation, and the shrouds tested with a control group fan- perhaps a stock A12x?
I love the championship matchup! As an idea, average feet/min between both tests may be more fair than points for 1st, 2nd, etc. If a fan barely loses in one round it can skew the final results.
Yeah baby! 😀 😀 I'm expecting some prices for this 😀😀 I honestly had no idea my Cheater will be this successful, but I'm so happy to see how much of a topic it is in your show 🙂
@@mavric1177 Well honestly ever since Season 5 started, I have in my mind a lot of improvements. Change of the base plate on James'es rig is also making my "diffuser" less efficient. It was originally created for rectangular cooler. I'm starting to think I should make an ilustrated presentation 😀
@@JeoshuaCollins Apparently it's not allowed to send links in youtube comments. So, I was saying: Really? What would you suggest? You can also visit Thingiverse, I'm answering most of the questions there... I can't send you the link though. But James had a link on one of the Cheater videos and you can find it just by the Cheater name. It's that yellow green ugly thing.
The intakes/exhausts sure make a great difference ... but how much exactly? Could you test these "addons" on the A12x25 to give us a reference point? Cool work with the new printer! Cheers
I finally got into 3D printers enough to consider buying one, then I saw this video recommended to me, so I binged the whole series. PC's, 3D printing, custom fans, AND real world testing? That's just so cool.
Finally! Excellent video! A couple things of note.. Elegoo's ABS-Like Plast Based Resin is absolutely phenomenal. Easy to print, low fumes, decent strength. After testing dozen or so resins from 6 or 7 manufacturers, it's the way to go. Resin printing is lots of fun, but make sure you're being safe. Please ensure that you have correct ventilation when resin printing, especially when you are pulling prints or filling the vat. Plant based or not, the liquid resin and fumes are extremely toxic and likely carcinogenic, especially with regular exposure. Safety glasses and nitrile gloves when there is any potential for exposure to uncured resin and either good ventilation (force fresh air in, bad air out) or wear a proper respirator or even both. A proper 500+ square foot air purifier with proper HEPA filter (not the cheap Chinese ones) is a good idea to run in a basement room with limited ventilation. I run my resin printers in Creality FDM enclosures with ducting directly outside using a 140mm fan at each end of the duct, use printed TPU gaskets to keep the fumes in the box, printed resin vat covers for when not in use, and let the prints drip off for at least 8 hours before retrieving a new print. Your videos are great, but no amount of views is worth taking years off your life! There are no long term studies on the effects, but the short term studies aren't very confidence inspiring to say the least. I hate to be that guy and maybe you're already doing some of this stuff, but I've seen a lot of bad health practices in the past six months. Keep up the hard work! Looking forward to the next one!
How are we four seasons in and still no separate list for fans that fully fit within the fan frame, and fans that have added attachments for airflow? I know I have been suggesting it since season one, and have seen other doing the same for just as long.
I'd like to see a season where all designs must fit entirely within the space enclosed by the original fan housing. That creates a fair playing field for designs people would actually use in custom builds, curtails this brinkmanship of oversized designs which is now required to be competitive, and probably saves a mint on printing time and material too.
Hey James, I love your videos, and I'm excited to see that you've gotten into resin 3D printing now! It makes total sense for fan-testing! I still wanted to make sure you're informed about the health risks of resin printing. I know the community isn't always very open about this, but based on my own experience, these risks should NOT be ignored! Allergies, irritation, and other issues can be quite serious, and it's important to consider the cumulative effects over time... But I'm sure you're well aware of this, and I'm looking forward to more of your resin printed fan showdowns - Take care! Cheers
You actually filled your water loop all of the way on the O11 XL, thank you now seeing the half filled distro plate wont distract me anymore, lol, great video again, love this series.
I feel the accelleron is fighting outside its weight class, its like trying to compare a 1 slot GPU cooler vs a 4 slot GPU cooler, obviously the bigger one is going to do better but the fact that this fan works NEARLY as well as the others without all the extra intakes or exhausts or space required is pretty amazing. I look forward to being able to buy one sometime in the future.
If the acceleron did have ally of bulk then the others it would probably perform really well. I think the acceleration is the best when you’re building a pc. You don’t want extra stuff to would take space space and limit space in a pc and this is what the acceleron perfects in terms of compactability, performance, and looks.
I've been printing tabletop figures for a while now, and without exaggeration the biggest difference for resin is that you keep your resin warm. get one of those fermentation belts online. They keep your resin at a good 30 °C. gamechanger. also, if you haven't make sure to properly calibrate your resin. I found the best video on this is by Core Electronics. Really, if you keep these two factors in mind failed prints aren't very common. In my experience resin color makes a bit of an experience too. Black resin takes a bit longer to cure, but imo usually comes out a bit sharper. so longer prints, but they're a bit sharper.
The thing about all the other fans compared to the acceleron though is SIZE - they range from "I might just be able to fit that" - to "I need a much bigger b̶o̶a̶t̶ - case". I think the test needs to be run again based on "the best entries that are **normal thickness**".
From a pure performance standpoint, I can understand the big intake/exhaust shroud pieces help. They prep the flow air flow in a more ideal way; similar to a trumpet in a high performance engine's air intake system. However, it's not ideal in an actual use case. They're just too large for use in a housing that isn't designed for them. I'd like to see what the Acceleron could do with an intake shroud, or how much is lost from the other 3 without their shrouds.
a question, have you tried to give a finish on the surfaces of the fans? I ask cos there's some imperfections in the blades and idk if it could affect the performance
Can we see a showdown of the top fans without shrouds or other add-ons? So we can see how those fans that would fit in a normal PC fare against each other?
The resin prints are smooth and stable. Maybe it's time to have people start designing a new fan frame that you can toss the Noctua motor into and see if any leaps can be made on that front.
Get a flex plate for the printer and print directly on the bed. This way you get much better dimensional accuracy and no warping. You also don't need supports quite often. Ignore the long line of whiners who don't agree with printing on the bed. Maybe that's true if you only print warhammer miniatures or other tat to put on the shelf. I make functional MSLA prints as a business and we print 90% of what we do directly on the bed.
I think the difference between the two runs would actually be a better metric to see which is more efficient. Which would put the Slug Mk. 2 in first with 119, the Acceleron in second with 137, the Cheater in third with 234, and the Unswirler in fourth with 330.
can you compare the performance of these with their fdm counterparts to see if there is some qualitative advantages? Maybe some designs where it is better or worse?
Casual viewer here, and big fan of the Banks youtube channel. Recently they did a video on flow bench that may be applicable to this testing. Ultimately what we care about is how many molecules of air we're shoving past the rad. So we don't so much care about volume flow, we care about mass flow. What you could do is build a simple arduino device that displays a reading from an automotive mass air flow sensor placed inside your tube (not sure how that would be scaled). You could also add an aperature style oriface where you could measure the fan's mass flow performance at different pressure ratios. Of course it would be worthwhile to characterize the flow through a radiator, case, and blower cooler to have some pressure ratio test points.
As an engineer, the flow through the inlet is lower if it is sticking out from the main separator plate. If you require next season to have all inlets installed behind the separator plate the flow will increase and so will performance.
It would be nice to see these results compared to an stock and printed(same printer, same material) A12x25. I know u've done it before but a updated version would be nice!
have you tried testing just the fans or make the fan blades fit in a standard 25mm thickness? Or even take the best shroud and pair it with the other fan blades
For a next season, I'd like to see a contest for the most silient fan. But that can't be the only criteria, since 'no blades' will probably win... 😉 Another criteria could be something weird like turbulence. (Although I have no idea how to measure this...)
one step up would be the quietest fan in small form factor either slim or small 80mm fans. As 80mm fans can get crazy load, but with the increase in Small cases would be fun to test for sure
@@jamesaston6215 hmm how do you control the submission cause ideally you would want the fans to run at 100% and hit that mark? Because slowing a down a fans would make it quieter. Kinda goes back to your comment quietest fan is a fan without blades or a fan that isn’t moving 😅
@@jamesaston6215 yah that does make some since, like if your design is effective enough to have the head room on the ft/min. Then its only fair that it should be able to slow down to get a better score on the db levels
I'd like to see you test the various intake/outlet designs with each fan, and then figure out which of those is best and make them a standard part of testing, so that each fan is tested alone and with intake/outlet adapters. Part of the cheater's success could well be the conical inlet, standard for turbofan intakes. Different means of "unswirling" are also possible, and the most common "flow straightener" seems to be a honeycomb-which nobody has yet tested, probably because they _seem_ like they'd impede airflow to some extent. Anyway, testing every fan with and without a common intake/outlet could provide some interesting information, and would level the playing field, rather than relying on participants simply deigning to design one each time. We all know they work, but they still take up material and space.
Just discovered this channel. Really interesting concept of testing various fan designs. Would it be possible to test the scalability of these designs. Maybe have the standard size using the noctua fan housing and a larger and smaller design. Unsure how this would be accomplished but maybe some sort of 3D printed funnel-like adapter to attach to the wind tunnel and then the scaled fan on the other end?
If there is a fan chassis big enough for it, would it be possible to scale these fans up and see how performance changes? Maybe see about miniaturizing some of these designs for use on smaller platforms, like cooing a raspberry pie or other small formfactor cooling systems.
I was curious to see what the sum of the airflows between tests were and if it altered the results of the rankings, it didn't but the results are Acceleron: 1003 Cheater: 1338 Unswirler: 1284 Slug Mk2: 1175
Yes, the activator in particular is very toxic. You should always wear a respirator while working with it. Gloves, paper towels, etc should be disposed in landfill. Any unused resin or contaminated liquids (IPA, water) should be exposed to UV for a long time to try to cure any remaining resin. It is extremely toxic to fish and other wildlife.
I may also be good to separate blade and intake/exhaust shroud into separate categories. Or have separate competitions for fan blade only and fan assembly (since evidently there is a huge advantage by just including a shroud.) This way people can optimize shroud designs for other's fan blade designs.
I agree. At this point there are two obvious schools of thought in the Showdown: best "real world" fan, and the best "Showdown" fan. As many have pointed out, most of these shrouded fans would never work in an actual case.
I would love to see fans specific to the space of the cheater and see if other fan designs/new designs can make it better with the same housing. Could you make a more effective fan for the cheater?
Follow up. Test for the best shroud (intake etc) with the Noctua fan and test for the best fan (no shroud/intake) then combine the best with the best to see if that can beat the base cheater.
Hello everyone! Thomas here. Things are still going with the fan, it's just going slow. Thank you for your patience all this time! I'm not in a superyacht, at least yet c: I hope you're all having a wonderful day!
I'm still eagerly waiting 😁
upvote this man
69 likes as of now, nice! That design is so cool (pun intended) 😁
:D make sure you let us know if they ever sell the fans without a prebuilt!
Good luck man!
I like the idea of performance based points. Baseline is the A12X25 = 100%. All others would be based on its baseline. This would allow for rating based on actual performance of each fan regardless of the competition per episode. Thanks for keeping this going!
that's a great idea!
Please make this rise to the top! We need more scientific measurements for objectivity!
This.
@@ThePortuguesePlayer Maybe if we get enough people on board @major hardware will think about it??
@@formbi Thanks! I like data and I think this would be objective/sustainable for future seasons as well.
I think redoing some of the geared fans in resin might be a fun episode. FDM gears (especially small gears) are very noisy, typically have quite high friction, and are mechanically weaker than resin, once cured fully. I think, even if none of them actually bring real competition to the table, just seeing them work a little better and not explode in your face would be pretty entertaining.
2nd this
3rd this
Yes! I would love to see this!
yeah this really needs to happen. 100% agreeee
where did you get the info that resin gears are stronger than FDM? I've always seen the opposite.
Please can you test the velocity stacks you have with a stock A12x25? It would be super interesting to see if just adding the stacks to off the shelf fans could improve case airflow/cooling.
That would actually be pretty neat
there are tons of video showing why to not stack fan that are not meant to be stack.
@@mophie6941 they are asking to test the stock blades with the velocity stack, A.K.A the intake shrouds. Not stacking fan motor assemblies.
I second this
Shrouds help, it used to be a standard to have shroud on watercooling rad. It was proven to improve watertemps by a bit. There was a big comparison on xtremesystems where one guy tested bunch of fans with various shroud thicknesses but since xs forum died thats lost knowledge. Images with results dont show anymore : /
Gotta have categories for future ones. The Acceleron got beat hard, but its also the only normal sized one. I suggest a slim 15mm, normal 25mm, extreme with shrouds and stuff, and then a fun category for anything that puts style before substance. Then I also recommend we chart the results between noise and airflow and do a noise normalized test.
Yeah, the intake/exhaust adds so much. I’d also love to see how the acceleron would perform if it had an intake/exhaust as well.
It would be cool to compare each fan across different conditions too. Like measuring the cheater with no intake/exhaust, and with each individually.
That or change it to efficiency so most volume with the least amount of electricity in the same categories
Most of those extra parts can be assembled onto the acceleron, we should see if any of those help it be better.
Also see if without the extra parts would the cheater still beat it. Realistically, you may put the acceleron in your pc, but definitely not the others, they're too huge. But all of them can work without the extras, too, so it would be realistic(and fair) to try them "naked".
@@jamesstephens9501 acceleron has the looks, is compact and still performs really well. The other fans add allot of bulk which isn’t good when building pcs which is why the acceleron is perfect when building a pc as you get more space to add more components. If the other fans didn’t have intakes and exhaust the acceleron would def beat them.
I'm not a long term follower of the channel but your passion and joy at the pursuit of an engineering design quest is just SO entertaining. Keep on doing what you're doing.
Welcome to this... fandom.
@@Oblithian Major hardware is most DEFINITELY a "FAN boi".
I sense a lot of FANtastic answers here....
Resin prints just look so clean They almost look manufactured
I paint them as commissions and people have told me they look like the popped right out of the game
Resin printers have also become dirt cheap too. Good time for stuff like that.
I mean, any print is manufactured if you think about it
@@Thephysiquemechanic what kind of models do you paint? I was doing the same thing for a while with anime character bc my friends are weebs lmao
@@jjbeast102699 I paint items from the game sea of Thieves and do commissions
This was sweet! As others have mentioned, while I think the shrouds are cool in terms of pushing boundaries, I personally enjoy episodes a lot more when there's no extra assemblies on the height of the fans, because most cases wouldn't support their installation. Granted, generally I doubt people are cannibalizing A12x25's anyways, but I could absolutely see a world in which a company does produce a fanless hub designed for custom 3d prints, there's obviously a big community of us.
In any case, the testing methodology of including both radiator and non-radiator testing would be excellent to include in future episodes if it's not too onerous!
you cant tell me a pc case with velocity stacks wouldn't look kinda cool though
Although I like the no rules competition next season could have the contender split in 2 categories: one with fans with no shrouds and within the limits of the Noctua’s housing and another free of rules.
CPU radiator would be almost perfect for shroud application if there is enough space left for RAM. Front and back panel can be alright too but i doubt that direct airflow would benefit case circulation
Completely agree. It's cool to see the shroud designs but they really don't interest me, so a 2 category list would be best, normal sized fans and supersized ones.
@@AndreZelak I like this, but I'd do three categories: OEM spec (single piece fan that fits within the original housing), OEM+ spec (single piece, can extend beyond the housing), and Custom spec (multi-piece, no restrictions). That way you can get a really good idea of the engineering of a given fan based on apples-to-apples comparison.
IDENTIFY YOURSELF THOMASS! All jokes aside its always a good day when a fan showdown happens
Wasn't me 😂
Hes youtube name is Vaetheon
His is the top comment when I posted this
@@It-b-Blair respect
great to see my fan on the show again, thanks for the test we've all been waiting for. I'm not surprised I got 3rd because I optimized that fan for air coolers. I do think that that could have been a nice additional test but I'm glad the community got their answer. Thanks again major, keep up the good work
I would like to see what a 3d printed case with airflow in mind would look like. I'd think i'd be fun to see how it could be done on small print beds and assembled
3d printed cases are something that really interested but no one really seems to be doing it. If he did a 3d printed case that would be sick
@@jjbeast102699 they would take forever to print and use a lot of filament, you definitely couldn't have a showdown of them
@@jjbeast102699 I've seen a few 3D printed open air frames and SFF cases on the PCMR subreddit.
3d printed case showdown!
@@FastSloth87 I've seen multiple atx or eatx printed cases. But most use some sort of tubing to make most of the frame, since printing all of it would be wastefull and weaker.
This has been the best reality tv show ever. Multiseason arcs, real tension, teams forming in the crowd, and real tests to determine winners, not voting.
Such a damn good format for this video! Perfect amount of commentary and storytelling!
“More than enough to fit anything you guys can come up with.”
challenge accepted.
This is great the resin printer really helped, and increased the unswirlers fan blade quality. I am
extremely satisfied with my design because it achieved more than I anticipated it would
ever achieve.
It had beautiful flow. Perhaps too heavy?
@@mandowarrior123 dont know, but I think that the weigth is not the problem, but I think I mirrored the intake, the blades should be in the other direction, I have to check
I wanna thank you for being so dedicated and hard working this whole time, been here since season one and I want MOAR!
Always.
woot glad to see the resin reprints of the "best"
Didn’t know I wanted to see this, but this was awesome. Thanks for going the extra mile to make such an awesome vid!
That Einstein head is crazy!
I love the comparison between airflow and static pressure, it's really interesting to see how the positions shifted, especially the Slug Mk2
I miss the rpm and noise lvl in the challenge, that would have an additional impact on the variety of possible points and possibly ranks?!
Love the content. Waiting four the next 😊
I think there should be an isolation of the fans from shroud assemblies. The fans tested in isolation, and the shrouds tested with a control group fan- perhaps a stock A12x?
I love the championship matchup! As an idea, average feet/min between both tests may be more fair than points for 1st, 2nd, etc. If a fan barely loses in one round it can skew the final results.
In that case the cheater and unswirler where pretty close:
cheater 669 fpm
unswirler 642 fpm
slug mk2 587.5 fpm
acceleron 501.5 fpm
I'd add it as a metric in the spreadsheet, but I'd keep the points - they are useful for providing a strong visual separation between the places.
I wish it was comparison with old results too. How much better would it be if you print them on SLA instead of FDM
Honestly, please, just don't stop! Love the content. Love having breakfast with Major Hardware!
I only found this channel a few months ago, but I'm glad I did. It's great content. I love the delivery and vibe.
youre one of the few youtubers who i dont mind rambling 😄 love ur work!
Awesome. Nice to see the two-factor evaluation. Those are some great fans.
Need to try mix and matching the shrouds from the Unswirler and Cheater
This is truly what we have been waiting for. Thank you!
This gives a lot of great info based on what use someone has for the fan. Glad you did both testing and you see strengths and weaknesses.
I love the content of this video. I always love the fan showdown, but this video is possibly one of the best you've done
I love this ranking system! It's a little more work for you but I think it certainly paints a clearer picture of the winner.
Yeah baby! 😀 😀 I'm expecting some prices for this 😀😀
I honestly had no idea my Cheater will be this successful, but I'm so happy to see how much of a topic it is in your show 🙂
would love to hear your thought process towards its design, why you choose the type of fan you did, number of blades ect..
I second that. You should do an AMA (and link here if you do, plz)
@@mavric1177 Well honestly ever since Season 5 started, I have in my mind a lot of improvements. Change of the base plate on James'es rig is also making my "diffuser" less efficient. It was originally created for rectangular cooler.
I'm starting to think I should make an ilustrated presentation 😀
@@JeoshuaCollins Apparently it's not allowed to send links in youtube comments. So, I was saying:
Really? What would you suggest? You can also visit Thingiverse, I'm answering most of the questions there... I can't send you the link though. But James had a link on one of the Cheater videos and you can find it just by the Cheater name. It's that yellow green ugly thing.
@@nestoNESTOnesto I think we would all absolutely love to see a Cheater Mk II if you ever felt like implementing those improvements...
The intakes/exhausts sure make a great difference ... but how much exactly? Could you test these "addons" on the A12x25 to give us a reference point?
Cool work with the new printer!
Cheers
How hard would it be to do an opposite test?
E.i. test the acceleron inside the shrouds, and test the shrouded fans as stand alone?
the intake/exhaust is called a duct. fans get a boost in performance by directing the flow of air.
I finally got into 3D printers enough to consider buying one, then I saw this video recommended to me, so I binged the whole series. PC's, 3D printing, custom fans, AND real world testing? That's just so cool.
Finally! Excellent video!
A couple things of note..
Elegoo's ABS-Like Plast Based Resin is absolutely phenomenal. Easy to print, low fumes, decent strength. After testing dozen or so resins from 6 or 7 manufacturers, it's the way to go.
Resin printing is lots of fun, but make sure you're being safe. Please ensure that you have correct ventilation when resin printing, especially when you are pulling prints or filling the vat. Plant based or not, the liquid resin and fumes are extremely toxic and likely carcinogenic, especially with regular exposure. Safety glasses and nitrile gloves when there is any potential for exposure to uncured resin and either good ventilation (force fresh air in, bad air out) or wear a proper respirator or even both.
A proper 500+ square foot air purifier with proper HEPA filter (not the cheap Chinese ones) is a good idea to run in a basement room with limited ventilation.
I run my resin printers in Creality FDM enclosures with ducting directly outside using a 140mm fan at each end of the duct, use printed TPU gaskets to keep the fumes in the box, printed resin vat covers for when not in use, and let the prints drip off for at least 8 hours before retrieving a new print.
Your videos are great, but no amount of views is worth taking years off your life! There are no long term studies on the effects, but the short term studies aren't very confidence inspiring to say the least.
I hate to be that guy and maybe you're already doing some of this stuff, but I've seen a lot of bad health practices in the past six months.
Keep up the hard work! Looking forward to the next one!
Would have liked to see the stock A12x25 also in the charts. Cheater still the reigning champion
Great episode! I really liked the resin printed fans vs. FDM, so much cleaner looking!
How are we four seasons in and still no separate list for fans that fully fit within the fan frame, and fans that have added attachments for airflow? I know I have been suggesting it since season one, and have seen other doing the same for just as long.
Yes pleeeeeeeeeaseeee
I'd like to see a season where all designs must fit entirely within the space enclosed by the original fan housing. That creates a fair playing field for designs people would actually use in custom builds, curtails this brinkmanship of oversized designs which is now required to be competitive, and probably saves a mint on printing time and material too.
Hey James,
I love your videos, and I'm excited to see that you've gotten into resin 3D printing now! It makes total sense for fan-testing!
I still wanted to make sure you're informed about the health risks of resin printing. I know the community isn't always very open about this, but based on my own experience, these risks should NOT be ignored! Allergies, irritation, and other issues can be quite serious, and it's important to consider the cumulative effects over time...
But I'm sure you're well aware of this, and I'm looking forward to more of your resin printed fan showdowns - Take care!
Cheers
Best original series on yt. Loving it 💜
I really like this choice for measurement, those two variables tell a lot of what they can really do in real scenarios
i think my favorite thing about your videos other than the obvious pursuit of hoemade fans... is the "whose line is it anyway" approach to seasons
Bro im soo happy to see that you did it❤
that eifel tower looked a bit bigger than an inch to me
Have you thought about using ziplines drone propeller design as a Colling fan?
You actually filled your water loop all of the way on the O11 XL, thank you now seeing the half filled distro plate wont distract me anymore, lol, great video again, love this series.
I feel the accelleron is fighting outside its weight class, its like trying to compare a 1 slot GPU cooler vs a 4 slot GPU cooler, obviously the bigger one is going to do better but the fact that this fan works NEARLY as well as the others without all the extra intakes or exhausts or space required is pretty amazing.
I look forward to being able to buy one sometime in the future.
If the acceleron did have ally of bulk then the others it would probably perform really well. I think the acceleration is the best when you’re building a pc. You don’t want extra stuff to would take space space and limit space in a pc and this is what the acceleron perfects in terms of compactability, performance, and looks.
I hope you keep resin printing, how smooth it comes out is a big part of it.
I've been printing tabletop figures for a while now, and without exaggeration the biggest difference for resin is that you keep your resin warm.
get one of those fermentation belts online. They keep your resin at a good 30 °C. gamechanger.
also, if you haven't make sure to properly calibrate your resin. I found the best video on this is by Core Electronics.
Really, if you keep these two factors in mind failed prints aren't very common.
In my experience resin color makes a bit of an experience too. Black resin takes a bit longer to cure, but imo usually comes out a bit sharper. so longer prints, but they're a bit sharper.
The thing about all the other fans compared to the acceleron though is SIZE - they range from "I might just be able to fit that" - to "I need a much bigger b̶o̶a̶t̶ - case".
I think the test needs to be run again based on "the best entries that are **normal thickness**".
From a pure performance standpoint, I can understand the big intake/exhaust shroud pieces help. They prep the flow air flow in a more ideal way; similar to a trumpet in a high performance engine's air intake system. However, it's not ideal in an actual use case. They're just too large for use in a housing that isn't designed for them. I'd like to see what the Acceleron could do with an intake shroud, or how much is lost from the other 3 without their shrouds.
Excellent!!
Are you THE thomas?
We need thomas😮
Funny enough I do mechanical design for a living but this isn't my design.
a question, have you tried to give a finish on the surfaces of the fans? I ask cos there's some imperfections in the blades and idk if it could affect the performance
I'd never thought I'd be a fan of a fan, but here we are...
Would you run your test with 2 stock noctua fans stacked (both as is out if bix with motors). Just curious how it would compare.
HEY! I just suggested this last week! Thank you!
This was a very fun video and it was awesome to see the Cheater retake it's rightful place at the top.
Can we see a showdown of the top fans without shrouds or other add-ons? So we can see how those fans that would fit in a normal PC fare against each other?
The resin prints are smooth and stable. Maybe it's time to have people start designing a new fan frame that you can toss the Noctua motor into and see if any leaps can be made on that front.
Oh boy this exciting
Yes I agree
Get a flex plate for the printer and print directly on the bed. This way you get much better dimensional accuracy and no warping. You also don't need supports quite often. Ignore the long line of whiners who don't agree with printing on the bed. Maybe that's true if you only print warhammer miniatures or other tat to put on the shelf. I make functional MSLA prints as a business and we print 90% of what we do directly on the bed.
14:17 I would even say : It is resin again to the top of the pile.
I’m sad there was no awesome music montage of the fan smoke tests ;-; that’s the hype train of this whole series!
How's the dB on the resin vs their pla versions?
Yup, interesting too
I think the difference between the two runs would actually be a better metric to see which is more efficient. Which would put the Slug Mk. 2 in first with 119, the Acceleron in second with 137, the Cheater in third with 234, and the Unswirler in fourth with 330.
could you test the noctua a12x25 with these setups as well, just for comparison?
FAVORITE VIDEO EVER THANK YOU SO MUCH
Not to change the results but it would be nice to know the noise level of these newly printed fans. Does the new printing method affect that much?
You can try to make a distro-plate from resin, maybe it will be something nice
can you compare the performance of these with their fdm counterparts to see if there is some qualitative advantages? Maybe some designs where it is better or worse?
Blood for the Blood God
Bones for the Skull Throne
Comments for the Algorithm
Milk for the Khorne Flakes
Potatos for the Potato Throne
let's see some resin prints of the complex helical gear fans that were too messy with the other prints
Casual viewer here, and big fan of the Banks youtube channel. Recently they did a video on flow bench that may be applicable to this testing. Ultimately what we care about is how many molecules of air we're shoving past the rad. So we don't so much care about volume flow, we care about mass flow. What you could do is build a simple arduino device that displays a reading from an automotive mass air flow sensor placed inside your tube (not sure how that would be scaled). You could also add an aperature style oriface where you could measure the fan's mass flow performance at different pressure ratios. Of course it would be worthwhile to characterize the flow through a radiator, case, and blower cooler to have some pressure ratio test points.
It would be interesting to know what the unmodified Noctua (and maybe some other popular fans) would have done.
As an engineer, the flow through the inlet is lower if it is sticking out from the main separator plate. If you require next season to have all inlets installed behind the separator plate the flow will increase and so will performance.
i love fans
I would love to see the swirler with a velocity stack and see how much of a diffenrence it makes.
It would be nice to see these results compared to an stock and printed(same printer, same material) A12x25. I know u've done it before but a updated version would be nice!
And yet again: will there be a category for 'standard sized' fans? Cause I can't fit Cheater in my mini tower for sure, no matter how good it is.
have you tried testing just the fans or make the fan blades fit in a standard 25mm thickness? Or even take the best shroud and pair it with the other fan blades
For a next season, I'd like to see a contest for the most silient fan. But that can't be the only criteria, since 'no blades' will probably win... 😉
Another criteria could be something weird like turbulence.
(Although I have no idea how to measure this...)
one step up would be the quietest fan in small form factor either slim or small 80mm fans. As 80mm fans can get crazy load, but with the increase in Small cases would be fun to test for sure
Maybe most silent over a set feet/min of airflow, like it has to be a min of 700 or something
@@jamesaston6215 hmm how do you control the submission cause ideally you would want the fans to run at 100% and hit that mark? Because slowing a down a fans would make it quieter. Kinda goes back to your comment quietest fan is a fan without blades or a fan that isn’t moving 😅
@@mavric1177 yh but a fan with no blades wouldn’t push 700ft/min. Just voltage control until they reach a set minimum flow rate, and then measure dB
@@jamesaston6215 yah that does make some since, like if your design is effective enough to have the head room on the ft/min. Then its only fair that it should be able to slow down to get a better score on the db levels
Thank you for reading the comments and doing both tests
I'd love to see a seperation of tradtional fans and shroud fans
I'd like to see you test the various intake/outlet designs with each fan, and then figure out which of those is best and make them a standard part of testing, so that each fan is tested alone and with intake/outlet adapters.
Part of the cheater's success could well be the conical inlet, standard for turbofan intakes. Different means of "unswirling" are also possible, and the most common "flow straightener" seems to be a honeycomb-which nobody has yet tested, probably because they _seem_ like they'd impede airflow to some extent.
Anyway, testing every fan with and without a common intake/outlet could provide some interesting information, and would level the playing field, rather than relying on participants simply deigning to design one each time. We all know they work, but they still take up material and space.
8:35 Or know anything about Engines and such. Cars (and bikes) have been using "velocity stacks" for about as long as they have tires.
Just discovered this channel. Really interesting concept of testing various fan designs. Would it be possible to test the scalability of these designs. Maybe have the standard size using the noctua fan housing and a larger and smaller design.
Unsure how this would be accomplished but maybe some sort of 3D printed funnel-like adapter to attach to the wind tunnel and then the scaled fan on the other end?
thank you for topping up your distroblock haha!
also, holy crap the cheater is just unbeatable!
If there is a fan chassis big enough for it, would it be possible to scale these fans up and see how performance changes? Maybe see about miniaturizing some of these designs for use on smaller platforms, like cooing a raspberry pie or other small formfactor cooling systems.
It would be interesting to see what difference FDM versus resin makes on the fans - does a smoother surface finish help or hinder?
I was curious to see what the sum of the airflows between tests were and if it altered the results of the rankings, it didn't but the results are
Acceleron: 1003
Cheater: 1338
Unswirler: 1284
Slug Mk2: 1175
Holy shit @ the detail in those first two prints.
Does the smell of the resin also have respiratory and/or neurological side effects?
Yes. It's not good to breath and will also give you a headache
Yes, the activator in particular is very toxic. You should always wear a respirator while working with it. Gloves, paper towels, etc should be disposed in landfill. Any unused resin or contaminated liquids (IPA, water) should be exposed to UV for a long time to try to cure any remaining resin. It is extremely toxic to fish and other wildlife.
I’d love to see zero-stack fans and see if we can see if a new low profile fan can rise to the challenge.
I may also be good to separate blade and intake/exhaust shroud into separate categories. Or have separate competitions for fan blade only and fan assembly (since evidently there is a huge advantage by just including a shroud.) This way people can optimize shroud designs for other's fan blade designs.
I agree. At this point there are two obvious schools of thought in the Showdown: best "real world" fan, and the best "Showdown" fan. As many have pointed out, most of these shrouded fans would never work in an actual case.
It would be fun to have the designers of the Cheater and Unswirler colab and try to combine the two into one ultimate fan.
I would love to see fans specific to the space of the cheater and see if other fan designs/new designs can make it better with the same housing. Could you make a more effective fan for the cheater?
Follow up. Test for the best shroud (intake etc) with the Noctua fan and test for the best fan (no shroud/intake) then combine the best with the best to see if that can beat the base cheater.