I Copied Noctua's A12x25 and Resin Printed it, Its Performance Was ASTONISHING
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 มิ.ย. 2024
- I see two comments pop up quite often in my videos. The first is, how much better would these fans be if they were printed in on a SLA printer. the second is, how much performance is lost just by 3D printing process. Today we look at both of these comments and try and figure what the answer is.
I took the Nocuta A12x25 and tried my best to design a copy of it. I then took that copy and printed two fans. One is printed using the FDM process the other printed using the SLA process. We will take those two fans and compare them to each other along with the OEM A12x25.
Download this A12x25 model.
www.thingiverse.com/thing:589...
printed on the Elegoo Saturn
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@MajHardware - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
I think since it's such a pain, why not just do a resin print of the top 5 fans from the fan showdowns, and retest to see the improvements?
This
I concur. If you can establish a consistent percentage difference between resin and FDM, just apply that percentage to all subsequent fans. You don't need to resin-print anything if you can verify the differences.
@@firecopscott I too concur, there could be more substantial difference in more complex fans, like geared fans or fans with many small blades, which the generalization would not properly account for
I remember some of the printed fans in early seasons not looking much like the models they came from (especially with strands of filament sticking out between blades), so this might actually redeem some of the worse contenders too.
@@mattfisher1916 ... is the way
I think it would be fun to see some of the fans that are at the top of the chart reprinted with resin. We'd get to see it that can push then closer to or above the original A12x25. It would also help to see if the percentage difference is consistent, then you could decide if it's worth going all-resin for future shows.
Yeah before jumping in with a bigger printer, seeing the difference with a few fans that were already tested would probably be a good idea. I think a larger sample size will help us see if there is really a practical benefit to this for the average community created fan. But it could also be good to just do a one off episode where ALL the fans are designed with resin in mind. I feel like quite a few in the past have been let down on the fine details, and it would be cool to see if it makes a difference.
adding the 2.6% means the Angel beats the A12x25 495 to 497 !!
I'd like to see the ANGEL(11bladed fan) in resin
Ditto. Make the final show of the season a resin-printed showdown between the top 4 fans of that season.
Audience of webshow that generates heaps and heaps of data, demand more data.
I remember Noctua saying that they spent a lot of time researching on the material for this fan blade because the centrifugal force causes most plastics to slightly deform outwards over time. And since the tip of the blade is so close to the outer enclosure, a small deformation could cause them to come into contact and cause problems.
I would like to see prolonged tests of different materials in hot and cold environments, running separately. One could run in an old fridge that has the door sensor tab broken off, so it would think that the door is always open, so that it would put power on the internal lighting that could be used to power the fans. and wireless camera. and a light. And the heated environment could be the back of the fridge, surrounded by a case to collect the heat that the heat exchange radiator puts out behind the fridge. Third set could be room temp. and time lapse cameras on all three.
@@vallorahn PLA is pretty terrible with heat. I would expect an exhaust fan of computer might already start deforming quite soon.
Generally this is just so people accept the higher prices. PBT plastic or other plastics would fare just fine, really mean it.
For instance look at delta fans, they are server fans that spin really fast and blow 3x times more than a noctua. I am pretty sure that stuff is just regular plastic, you can find other fans with the same plastic, and they last for over 80K hours under continuous operation at full tilt. And can be found for about 12$ - 15$ online
@@jbmw16 I suspect this is true. Marketing is one thing, realistically I think most fans will simply fail (mechanically) before that sort of thing even comes into play. I've never had a fan of any type or sort flat out deform itself to death.
If you end up doing a fan showdown with a resin printed fan, you can always ask for pre-supported models for resin. It would be an extra challenge for designers and also make your life so much easier
I'd really like to see you do more prints in resin. I think it might open the door for some geometry that might not be possible with FDM (thinner blades, etc).
Exactly. And now that we know the numbers, it's easy to calculate how much worse the FDM version would perform - as long as they're printable.
I second this!
I think FDM is lacking the micro grooves that break up trailing edge turbulent air.
@@ronnetgrazer362 To be fair, the exact percentage difference between the FDM and PLA will be different depending on the geometry, some designs may not gain as much benefit from PLA while others the smoothness may be an even larger contributor. I imagine some designs may even benefit from FDM over PLA, the small lines might break up some turbulence in certain designs for example. We know it's about a 2.1% difference for that particular model, but that doesn't mean we can slap a 2.1% difference to every model tested, that's just not how fluid dynamics works.
There are additional variables beyond smoothness (iirc there was a smoothing episode of fan showdown) including but not limited to
- part accuracy (flat planes don’t work perfect on resin, but rather than sag they can just disappear into the resin vat leaving thinner parts)
- material density
- infill (iirc the FDM prints are 100% most of the time, but they needn’t be)
- surface properties of the material
- macro vs microscopic imperfections and texture (golf ball vs shark skin vs jagged edges)
If you're on the fence, you could reprint the leaderboard fans in resin, and measuring their performance could help you decide whether it's worth making the switch permanently. I think the idea of smoother surface finishes is nice and the parallel printing times could be helpful, but at the end of the day I'm on board with whatever you decide is the most convenient for you. I'd hate for you to switch to resin for us and have it make you hate doing this work. Also congrats on the kid!!!
^ this 100%. I don't know much about resin printing or 3d printing in general, but if health is a concern for resin printing then definitely don't do it or just do it on occasion.
Yep, if he's going to try printing in resin for these projects it needs to be a setup that makes it as easy as possible.
Big cleaning tanks or ultrasonic cleaner.
But most importantly, a dedicated extract system, NOT filtered recirculation that'll make sure he stays safe.
That would not be accurate since the fans that are on the leaderboard all do well in normal 3d print and would probably have the same percentage drop, but it would filter out (hypothetical) fans that are only good enough for the leaderboard when resin printed
It's probably not the surface finish, but more likely that the FDM print has shrunk, ie, molten fusion always shrinks, and that makes a bigger gap between blade and housing. It's the same when we run jetskis, ie, we shim to prop as tight as possible.
It would be cool to see top 5 (or maybe top 10) in a season of the fan showdown printed in resin to see if there is a markedly big difference. It would also be a fun way to do an allstars season, where you revisit/reprint old ones :)
I'd watch it! Like I watch almost all of your videos :D
Upon closer inspection (ie a quick look lol) the OG fan has thinner fins compared to your versions. Design wise everything else seems to match up. So my only thoughts are to re-gauge/measure the OG fin width and re-print on resin :D Interesting of how close you got to Noctua's results! With a little tweaking, I think you'd be able to slightly surpass their results on a resin print. Great job!
Yes, you should go to Resin at least for the FAN BLADES but not necessarily for the Enclosures/boxes etc because the fine details will be better for the blades.
And congratulations on the new addition to your family!
It would have been interesting to see the weight and RPM of each fan, maybe the observed differences can also be explained this way.
I second the motion. Was wondering the same thing
I would also like to se if there was any RPM difference between the fans, as this can be a significant factor in final CFM readings
Well if he set the test to a specific RPM which he has done before to keep it fair then it would remove the weight and RPM factor. The only difference would be power draw then if held at specific RPM.
RPM and power consumption (ie efficiency, watts per cfm) should definitely be added to the measurements.
+1. Would also be interesting if they are properly balanced or if there are tiny differences in center of gravity.
You should reprint the fdm with a 0.08 layer height and compare that to the 0.2. Would be interesting to see if or how much that helps. Might put it on par with the resin.
Another variation to look at would be to print the FDM fan using ABS filament, and then use acetone smoothing to get rid of some of the layering, to see if it gets closer to the resin print, and by how much.
I’d keep with FDM so all past season are on the same playfield, plus that majority of designs sent in are coming from people with FDM. I do like the idea of a finale where you do the top five SLA. Congrats on 2nd baby:)
I think comparing fdm printed fans to the fdm printed version of the noctua fan is good as you've essentially eliminated the problem of different materials/build quality. Then you can use the relative differences in results of the fdm fans and just apply them to the base noctua fan to get an idea of what a good quality version of the testing fan would look like.
This is a great idea!
Thank you for doing such a simple experiment. It’s always fun to take a single design and test multiple versions of it. There is a lot to learn from in tests like this.
Congratulations!!!
Oh because of the baby. I swear I thought this was the start of some bots spiel.
Resin would be a very cool change for the series, given the performance here. But I totally respect how difficult time consuming it would be. And you’d really have to get on top of fume extraction.
Also my dude, don’t apologise for having a kid! Congratulations!
Congratulations on your new arrival MH!
Congratulations on the new addition to the family.
To keep things simple for you, why not both? Do the general prototyping in FDM, while reserving SLA for fans that have really thin cross sections, as well as a season finale where you reprint the top handful in SLA.
Unlike FDM - very large SLA printers can be a royal pain. Multiple saturns would be best. The FEP is like a trampoline and having more tension to offset the movement will create more tuning headaches as the printers get larger.
this
I love how you describe things about resin printing, because I honestly feel the thing you don't like about it is what makes it fun to me :D
Congratulations on the new addition to your Family.
I think it would be interesting to have the fans resin printed for the next season of fan showdown, but I think a 2% difference of performance is well within margin of error, so it would be more about the differences in creative flexibility for designers, such as having thinner blades.
its probably too expensive
I would say fans justify being resin printed IF they can come within 2% of the OG model. Otherwise just stick with fdm to get the ballpark. Or perhaps just do a finale with the top 3 performers in resin.
To be honest blade thickness is probably limited as much by them flexing under stress as the printer. But it would probably help a bit with the tolerances and such. Still not sure if it's worth it.
Also consider, if you ever end up doing another contra-rotating fan, resin would probably do a better job with the tiny gears that go into it
Welcome back! Been resin printing for over a year now, would love to see you run a batch of testing through and show us more data.
Been there brother! Congrats on the addition to the family!
I'd suggest to test other models of fans to see if the delta loss in performance remains the same.
If it does, then all you need is an "offset" to compensate the printing efficiency loss so you can compare the models sent to you with commercial models.
That would probably be a function of surface area and hard to estimate.
I studied fluid dynamics, and you can't really do that. Two reasons:
1. Efficiency at top end tend to be non-linear. So you can't just add a 2.7% to every fan, that won't be fair to the commercial models.
2. The loss from the fans will affect RPM (drag), air flow (“lift”), and noise, neither are a simple linear calculation.
Agreed
@@AaronShenghao Valid points.
I drop my suggestion.
Honestly, as long as they are all made with the same printer it doesn't really matter. Whatever is easiest for you to get the job done and test for us.
P.S. congrats on the new family member! Hope you all are doing well.
True. Try out some different designs in Resin and if the performance difference is only around 2 percent vs FDM, then just add a correction factor when printing in FDM 🤔
Different designs are going to be affected very differently. Stock Noctua is actually a best-case scenario for rough prints because the design itself is so optimized.
I don't think that's a fair baseline for amateur experiments, especially when they often have a lot more surface area.
I'd love to see more resin fans, party because not many creators use it very often. It's cool to see it in action for more engineering related parts, rather than decorations!
Crazy interesting results. You made one hell of a model!
I think you should stick to FDM just because its probably much easier to whip out fans, though idk how much easier. Time is probably a valuable resource for you currently.
But having the option to make more fan design prints possible is probably also a good thing for the channel and fan showdown progression.
I was literally thinking about ask you to do this😂😂Compare the Performance percentage increase or decrease and compare it to the tier list.
Suggestion for next season. Seeing as both methods are within an oversimplified 3% performance difference of each other, I would say you can mix and match as it suites you best. Even adjusting of a 3% difference would rarely impact the results.
I don't think you need to swop over entirely to SLA for every single print especially for those that don't need it
Congratulations on the new addition to your family.
I think resin, being slightly better, but a lot more of a pain to work with, shouldn't be the standard. FDM is just too simple and fast compared to resin to fully switch over. Plus, the resin doesn't have the same range of colours and material effects you can get from fancy PLA filaments to make them look visually interesting.
Instead, I think maybe for the season finale, you should take the top couple on the scoreboard and print them in Resin for a final showdown and see if any of the designs have improved and if/how much they beat the OEM fan design by.
I agree completely
I prefer FDM. More appealing visually with the various filaments you use. Maybe do a special episode at the end of the season with the top contenders done in SLA.
Congratulations on your bundle of joy!
Welcome back lol. Congrats on the second lil pooper, wishing you all lots of strength and good health!
It would be interesting to see a series on trying to strive for the best fan design by investigating different fan features and their effects on performance/noise/etc. Like what effect would it have if you removed the "guiding lines" from the noctua fans?
Well noctua has already done that. Pretty sure the lines are for turbulence reduction or something to make it quieter
I would be interested in seeing some of the older fans that did well retested in resin.
Congrats on the kid! Happy for you :)
My vote is for whatever's gonna be easier for you. I just want more videos from you so, whatever helps that happen is what I want. Lol. Btw, CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR SECOND KID!! That's so awesome!
FDM is fine, even though I'm a resin "fan" myself. I think having a more comfortable work flow benefits everyone more than the small performance buff would. Besides, it's more consistent with the previous seasons and I like seeing the multicolored fans.
I think you should only print a fan in resin if it looks like it gets very close in performance to the a12x25, that way you aren't wasting time doing something you don't like for a fan that quite clearly won't compete.
Maybe print the top five fans in a season out of resin?
Congratulations on upgrading to Dad V2! Each little one is an adjustment I hope everything goes more smoothly soon.
I would love to see a resin print showdown! Thanks for the video as usual :)
For the FDM fan switch to 0.12mm layer height, use the exclusive tolerance setting, and maybe use some ironing. See if it makes a difference!
ironing only works well on smooth top layers. On everything else it's a waste of time and is likely to lead to print artefacts
@@iamdmc Right, but since there tend to be some flat areas towards the front of the blade it could have some minor advantages. Was my only thought.
Agree with the thinner layer height - surely the resin printer had thinner than 0.2mm layers - let's try to keep it apples-to-apples!
@@fredhamilton1701 His FDM prints are nice, but there are definitely a lot of settings he could tweak for ultimate quality. Problem is the print time tends to go up a lot as you probably know.
Agreed 0.12mm layers will be a significant improvement.
I think Resin season would be great. There have been designs in the past that had really thin features. Another thing I would love to see is the test in the number of fanblades (simple 5 vs 7 vs 9 vs 11 vs 13)
congratulations on new baby!
congratulations on the new baby!
You could FDM print the bulk of the fans and as a season finale reprint in resin the top 5 fans or whatever.
i would like to see a weight comparison between the fans.
also resin printed fans should be able to get away with thinner blades, while retaining strength.
resin printing would be an interesting niche for the next season. you always want to change your design constraints to inspire creative solutions.
Great comparison. Would love to see more SLA videos.
Have you considered doing a surface treatment of the FDM print? Like one of those acetone fume treatments or something that smoothens out the surface? That would be pretty interesting and probably fairly easy to test.
I think he already tried that in the past, I might be wrong tho'...
@@YOEL_44 I think you're right ;)
That only works with ABS, which he probably doesn't want to print with for the same reason as resin. It releases noxious fumes when melted, and the fumes are actually worse than resin. I think part of the reason resin performed better than the FDM is the hardness of resin. It's a harder material than the filament he uses, so the fan blades are stiffer. ABS is softer/more flexible than PLA. I don't remember what filament he uses (PLA or PET-G), but ABS is about as flexible as PET-G.
@@YOEL_44 Yeah he's done that, he's got two videos that tests this "SMOOTHING 3D prints with isopropyl alcohol" and "Does Smoothing 3D Prints Improve Performance and Can You Smooth PLA?"
You can smooth PLA with resin but yeah that defeats the point. Resin is honestly where it’s at when you need to be concerned with smooth airflow.
I think it would be neat to take the top fans from the last few seasons and see the performance increase printed in SLA vs FDM.
Yes, resin is the way forward. Help people set up a good procedure for the resin handling, arrange for a ventilated working space, learn to put on new glove if sticky etc. You don’t need to do a video with this information, just practice it yourself and let it show. Resin is amazing, and to build mechanical parts is a breeze compared to fdm. Calibration, calibration and calibration is what you need to master. And a few additional parameters compared to fdm, as the room temperature, resin temperature, and that the resin is well mixed. And you would also want to take a look at the cheaper variants of upside-down resin printer, as supports are a time thief, and you need much less supports when printing “in the bath”.
Great to see your experiments with fans! Love it ❤
This channel has come a long way since the early days and has single-handedly given rise to a hobby that no one ever thought would become one. After all, all those 3d printers in the wild need to be making something. So it might as well be fan blade iterations.
I think you should print the best fans of each episode for your season "fan"alie in resin to go against each other. Or you can have your fans choose their fan favorites for each season to print in resin to retest them.
Yes! 100% resin is the way! I’d also like to see the old number ones, cheater and the likes printed in resin for comparisons, and tested with each new season as a base line
congrats on the baby!!
Oh God YES! We want to see resin printed fans from now on! So much better looking!
Don't the hubs have a speed tolerance of + or - of about 5-7%? I think it's even listed on their spec sheets. I think you need to test on one hub considering your results are already so close.
Resin might allow for some more complex fans to be printed more true to the designer's intent. Especially the really thin ones.
So 2% vs FDM could potentially turn to 5% or more.
I'd say go for it, provided you can streamline the fabrication pipeline a bit to make it easier on you
massive fan of the channel!
it would be cool to see some sort of measuring stick or something to be used as a fiducial marker behind the smoke test for the fans
I’m all for resin printing next season! Also doing some of the old more complex fans in resin
For the next fan showdown, you could do the tests like normal, but only pick the winner to print out in resin to go toe to toe with the real noctua. That would save you from the dirtier resin process and not having to buy another printer.
I would say for future testing for the regular season keep it resin free, but for any championship between seasons do that in resin as something special if you don't like using it regularly. It would give better numbers of the winners but they would be compared to eachother at that point. the regular season don't change your methodology, even between seasons... or at least that is my opinion. Congrats on the new baby by the way.
I was thinking of resin printing since season 1. You can definitely benefit from the resolution and finish it provides, especially for complex designs like the multi-rotor/jet-engine/helical geared ones, but the hassle with SLA is real. I'd say the ultimate goal would be SLS but that's still crazy expensive unfortunately.
Resin FTW!
Also joining in on the "reprint top 5 and retest" choir 😊
hi MH, I have experience with SLA and FDM printers. There are plant-based resins that are WAY less stinky and supposedly less toxic (I still wear PPE when handling it, personally) than standard resin. If the smells bothers you I think using the plant-based stuff will make it a lot more tolerable.
It does seem like a logical step but I always liked the accessibility of fdm so maybe the next season can just be a comparison of fdm vs resin and collect a bunch of data to see if there are any fan designs that do better in fdm or resin
Congratulation man!!
Congrats on your new baby 👏
I like the idea of going to resin printing. I print in resin a lot, and what helps me is A) I use Elegoo's newest models which have a small carbon filter built in. B) Elegoo has a low VoC (low smell) or water washable resin which also is less smelly C) I have and the biggest help to me I have a box fan with "cut to fit carbon filters" I bought on Amazon that I run to move air around my printer.
Elegoo water washable resin is actually the smelliest resin I've ever used 😅
@@Cryect2 admittedly I have yet to try it, their website claimed it was lower odor, will have to try it now. I wonder if it's because it's water soluble therefore can dissolve in our bodies that makes it more irritating.
I have two ideas for incorporating SLA printing into the showdown: At the end of a season, the best 5 fans will be printed in resin and then compared again. Or a kind of christmas special where either the best fans of all seasons so far are printed in resin and compared, or we vote on the most liked fan of every season and then they get compared in their resin form.
Also congrats on the baby!
gz on the baby!
I think your FDM copy should be included on the showdown spreadsheet as a second baseline since it's subject to most of the same tolerances as the other 3D printed fans.
My thoughts exactly.
As someone who does resin printing, I would love to see more resin printing. I agree it is messy and smelly and getting your setting spec accurate can be pretty difficult, however I think if you can dial it in it would be worth it. I also think finding the best resin to use and sticking with it is a much larger thing than in filament. I look forward to it if you decide to go that route. Thanks again for your dedication, love the channel and your work.
definitely YES for all resin printing!
Yes you should do the thing.
Print all the things!
I think it would be wild to see you do a 200mm fan showdown. even if it's not a full season, I wanna see what people do with the massively increased volume. more complex geometries, lower base noise level so it's easier to spot sound differences, etc.
or a 40/80mm one because it just sounds goofy as hell and I wanna see the Clown Car edition of Fan Showdown
I would love to see a weight comparison between the three, i am curious if the differences in performance are mostly due to weight, or if surface finish and material stiffness play a significant role. maybe try some lightweight pla for comparison and if you got the nozzle some fiber reinforced filament as well. with the same model there should be a lot of interesting data to be had from this!
armchair science ftw ;)
The resin will be heaviest, i have both types and there is no contest. I think the performance drop from the oem was pretty much purely weight.
There will be greater surface friction theoretically with resin vs plastic, but the oem ones aren't very polished anyway. I'd like to see wax used though to reduce drag in absence of the polish aircraft use.
In ww2 they used wax and they found no amount of wax was too much, performance kept increasing the better waxed they were. Which is why you should wax your car, saves money in the long run.
Fdm has such poor quality surface its a joke comparing to factory parts.
Short question at 5:39 :
Why do not place the setup horizontally instead of vertically?
By testing vertically you currently start the smoke on top because of gravity. But if you would let the fan lay flat, you can start the smoke in the from above and let it distribute more evenly imo.
Also if you like, you can still invert the image afterwards (editing).
Either way great vids!
I would dig seeing a budget noctua fan with resin prints!
I'd say No, you don't need to move to a resin printer for all of next season, FDM is perfectly adequate and acceptable. It may be interesting to do one video at the end of the season to print the top 5 fans in Resin just for fun though.
Congratulations on the kid man!!
Congrats on your second rugrat!
As for resin, I know what a ballache it is but it's way more worth it, if you can source a bigger build unit, I'm all for next season being in resin, and as Lesley Munro mentioned, I would also like to see the top five retested in resin...
I like the idea of testing the top few fans with SLs to see how they stack up against the a12x25
Congrats!
I'd definitely like to see some reprints, especially for fans that were negatively affected by the traditional 3D print process. I remember there have been some which seemed VERY precise which were either modified to have printable thicknesses or just printed poorly.
I adjusted the top 3 of Fan showdown list by 2.5% to account for media-type issues. Angle is now #1 ahead of reference at 497 FPM. Gear Ration 494 FPM. Simple 13 is 490 FPM. Making; Angel #1, Reference #2, Gear Ratio #3 and Simple 13 #4
congratulations!!
I would vote yes for resin printed fans! Also congrats on having your second child!
Resin prints for new season, yes!
Congrats man! probably you can continue the same and just resin print and retest the season bests in a final chapter.
I use the elegoo saturn 8k for my prints and i use anycubic abs-like resin. I have found that if I use thin supports in chitubox at about 60% density, it works for almost anything. An added benefit is the supports come off very easily under hot water from the tap (as hot as you can stand without hurting yourself). You'll want to be careful about very fine prints, but for most purposes, it's very useful
Yes please resin print series
Congratulations!
Great Video and insane work!
Do you think acetone smoothed ASA would lead to even better measuring results in the end?
I'd like to see the fans resin printed in the future, yeah!