Or even better, have not only the factory-molded A12X25 as a goal poast, but also a *PLA-printed* A12X25 version (maybe even a resin-printed version as well). That way you could compare how *any* fan would do if it was resin-printed (assuming that the layer lines cause similar losses among all fans).
I'm now a big fan of the small fanfan because the creator was able to think outside the box and put the fanfan inside the box. A truely creative way to reinvent the wheel while keeping the wheel exactly the same as before it was reinvented.
I bet everyone thought of it already, but I'm the only one who did it. But I bet some serious fan showdowners might have done it and didn't want to submit it because they wanna make "good fans" that are "actually productive". It also seems really low effort (and it kinda was). Just take the fan, scale it down to fit in the fan, scale up the blades to touch the walls, add the hub template, hollow it out, done. The better thing would have been for me to do some cylindrical scaling to make the fans stretch to accommodate the larger hub, but even noctua's mini fans have about the same blade proportions as their big fans.
Tom’s Dragon Wing fan is insane! Well done, mate!! We need to have a special fan episode where we take all the best parts of of the featured fans over the years, and combine them into an ultimate fankenfan! Imagine the Dragon Wing in a Cheater shroud for instance!
Wow, is this the first time the A12 got beaten? I know it's not really a fair fight since Noctua also optimizes for noise, but that's still impressive.
@@sirmonkey1985 just like that one from a year ago or so that was never confirmed if it was Thomas's design or not. I can't recall the brand that used it though. Almost want to sat thermaltake.
@@sirmonkey1985 At this point where the fan is shown on video pretty clearly, it would be easy for a good engineer to just screendump and reverse engineer the dimensions of the fan in cad.
@@pr0xZen His recordings though are not in a proper sound chamber, so they are higher than the true value. So it's only comparable to other fans on the list in that room. Your own personal room and setup will differ. The fan db in a proper sound chamber is only 22.5 db. That's also at full speed, and my fans never reach full speed, since it's not needed. So I never really hear the ten fans, even when gaming for hours. The pump makes more noise.
@@ScytheNoire If you never run fana at 100%, then comparing fans by manufacturer or lab rating performance metrics is pointless, and seriously misleading at best. At that point, the results and metrics of these "fsn showdown" tests are arguably more representative of deployment in relateable usecase than any of the 1st or typical independ lab party figures.
Well if it was made of the special material it might still be noisy, but since Noctua said they made the material (something crystalline they said) not to warp under temperatures or age, then the fan get closer to the frame have even more performance and probably even noisier. But you could also run the fan slower or not as often because of how performant it is.
The tesla Turbine is missing allot of its key components. like the external shroud that directs the air over the ''blades'' the entire thing is supposed to be enclosed with a valve on one end and it blasting air out of the other.
I think you all are missing one important thing here, IT'S NOT A FAN, it's designed to be pushed by pressure to generate movement, not to be rotated to move air.
@@YOEL_44 go read the patent... and whats its current only commercial application? as a pump. i guess the rotary engine aka wankel is designed to be pushed by pressure too? at which end? the rotor? or the shaft? felix originally designed it as, guess what? a pump... yknow, ALL engines are just glorified air compressors? and then theres the whole issue about pressure, velocity, and bernoullis... "new principle of operation". its not a pressure aka reaction turbine. its not an impulse turbine. its a fluid friction turbine. pressure doesnt push anything. it simply tries to reach equilibrium.
Honestly the hard angle on the Dragon Wing has a smooth but more steep curve to it than the original Noctua fan blades. But Noctua's new fan blades yet to be released on their updated 140mm design, also, has a steeper curve; it's more abrupt/jagged of a curve though.
I would really love a sound based series where the dba and potentially a subjective "how nice to listen to" score are the focus. Could make use of the resin printer more and then rank all the fans based on fpm ratio Maybe normalizing with power or so the rpm of each fan is the same?
Not sure the cost of that dissolvable support filament, but there is a cheap and easy way to get easily removable supports for prints: Use a different filament type. If you are printing in PLA, use PETG supports, and if in PETG, use PLA supports. It makes them very easy to remove, and PLA and PETG are usually materials you already have around.
@@jttech44 Depending on where you live, PVA filament can cost a far chunk. Right now just looking at general lists, it costs about the same as a full 1kg spool of PLA for a 250g-500g spool of PVA. An while I don't expect people will use it exactly 1:1, that is still not 'cheap' in a price difference for something that only functions as a support material.
@@jttech44 Which is what the majority of people who 3D print as a hobby will mostly buy. Which is why PVA filament is considered expensive, as really the price per kg even for more expensive PLA is better than you can for PVA.
@@DuribunWolf Tbh, most people who are 3D printing don't have dual extruders so, PVA filament isn't something they'd buy. Once you've bought into dual extruder printing, you've figured out that cheap filament prints like crap, and nicer PLA+ makes alot of sense in terms of actual material needed and wasted material.At which point PVA isn't really cost prohibitive.
*@Major Hardware* 7:44 I'm SO GLAD that you added that acrylic sheet to mount the fans on, otherwise this test would have looked like garbage, but now it's actually great :D
I like silent and quiet computers when they're in the same room that I'm in. Having some turbine whine clearly audible unless I'm ramping speakers and headphones up to ear-damaging levels is annoying. That said, if it was something in a rack in its own shed or basement or something, it can go right ahead and scream.
I've been a long time fan of the fan showdown. The thing with the a12x25 is its supposed to work in a lot of different configurations. Case fan, heatsink fan, radiator fan. It always does good. Is it the best for anything? not so much but its a great compromise between all kinds of fans. So just pure airflow is not a great way to compare fans. We need to take into account airspeed, CFM, static pressure, lifetime and efficiency.
For a solution that is cheaper than PVA, when the application allows. When printing with PLA use PETG for support material & vice versa. The 2 materials will not bond to eachother at all, so the supports just fall away.
Finally someone adding parts that create turbolence at the end of the blade. That's a key to make air turbolent and easiert to push. I think even better would be with an intake that "prepares" the air for the blades. That is, creates turbolent air (with fins) and with curved static blades (like the fan) so that the fan can push as much as possible.
Hey! I watched all of the seasons. It would be rather nice to add a noise normalize section in the chart, since many many of want our pc's to perform, but quiet! I think somewhere between 38-45 dba should be fine, I'll let you be the decider on that. I know this is a lot of work, if you should retest a lot of designs, but hey! Free video. Thanks for your hard work!
Love the fan show down! Ever thought of remaking the Noctua and using that as a reference? A storebought vs a 3d printed fan might give a significant difference in results. This might be a better reference point as all others are printed as well.
I'm sorry excuse me... A fan just DESTROYED the Noctua A12X25 and every other fan on the chart and you just like... End the video on that bombshell? Wow. Back to the studio. 😂
i would be verry interested in seeing how the air moves trough a radiator/aircooler. That way you can see if it has some actual air pressure or takes the fastest way out and slows down. And you should scale down the Dragon Wing till it hits the same noise levels and then compare. Then you can see if it actually is better on simmilar noise levels and add the pressure test.
Can we see a fan speed vs sheer airflow graph for the A12x25 fan versus the Dragon Wing? It'd be interesting to see its possible use in variable fan speed situations!
The Dragon wing is kind of cool but sadly you won't know that once it's spinning. Also there are obviously more dimensions to fan design than cfm/rpm Even noise isn't just noise as there are types of noise that are perceived more quietly. A low frequency hum can be the same dB as a high-mid squeal but the hum will sound quieter. And if both are at low volume to begin with, the difference will be even greater. So it's a doubly good idea to try and get your fan to emit only low frequencies.
Noctua has a new fan on the way, and during their interview with GN about it and the R&D process that took a few years, they stated that their fan isn't optimized for pushing air through a radiator or for raw CFM. They strive for a sort of hybrid between the two styles. They want their fan to work really good as a case fan, and equally as good as an AIO fan. That being said, BY DESIGN, they are beatable with a more specialized design. It SHOULD be beaten in these tests. However, it SHOULD NOT be beaten across both open air and resistant (through radiator) CFM with a single design. I'd love to see how the Dragon Wing would fair against it for open CFM. It would be really cool to see Noctua beaten at their own thing
The thing with Fusion 360 is that it's cloud based (other than the fact I can't do anything with it). In order to export to STL, you gotta send it to the cloud, and they put you in a render queue. I first tried to center the fan hub template to the center of gravity, and it would just make these null points, and there was no way for me to translate that point to the center. If I just had a python terminal or something I could figure out how to translate it negative those coordinates. When you first import the stl, it lets you center it, but never again after that. Anyways, one render queue later, I'm in blender, and I just right click, align, center of mass. I've actually never needed to center something in blender, and it's been a good half year since I've used the program at all. Blender isn't known for their intuitiveness, but as a 3d modeling program it's pretty good. I even got an easy python script off of stack overflow to lay an object flat on the xy origin.
@@leifmessinger i prefer to store my data on my own drives. thats why i use gimp instead of photoshop (debating running my ancient copy of ps7 in a vm). id rather use old software anyway because not only am i used to it, but it was just better, and in many cases it still works, does the same job. anyway 3dsmax is good enough for me, and its something i already had in my tool box. ive done some game dev and know my way around various polygon formats and how to do transformations in code if need be. but i just export to stl and im good.
The dragon wing outperforming the A12x25, even within it's form factor is a big thing even if it is louder. I'm curious, would a softer material like PETg decrease noise?
You'd probably want to go even stiffer actually. Some of the noise is from the blade tips vibrating, and a stiffer material would "flap" less. Also, softer materials will likely expand more under the centripetal force of high-RPM tests, meaning you have to design with less efficient larger gaps around the edges.
Would be interesting to have some of the better performing and high selling fans included in the chart as well, just a few of them to see where they slot in among the printed fans.
WOOT FAN SHOWDOWN! YEAH :D holy crap that bat wing looks awesome! LMAO that fan - fan is hilarious! Skyscoop was a good one! The tesla looks cool but not surprised it didn't do well. WOW someone needs to call Tom and give him some money for that design!
I wonder with the tesla turbine if you offset each one of the sections a few degrees if that would make a difference? Like rotating each one of the pieces by about 5-10% each, but plate by plate, first plate at Top dead center then the second plate rotated 5-10 degrees and so on? I could be talking out my but, though curiosity has me.
It's an interesting thought! My intuition is that, without any other changes to the design, an offset like that would end up decreasing air flow to the inner plates, due to the decreased effective area of the opening, and thus decrease total throughput. But I'm no aerospace engineer, just some rando who occasionally likes swearing at mechanical things until they work, so I have no idea how that would effect turbulence and air pressure. Would be an interesting thing to try! Especially if you had the appropriate housing and motor to use a Tesla turbine as a pump.
Sleeper/conversion cars are the most high roller cars There's this one guy who sells ender 3 core xy conversion kits. That's probably the most baller 3d printer possible. "Yeah I have an ender 3. Yeah it does a 7 minute benchy."
I had a nice gigle at the Fan fan and Tesla turbine smoke tests, they really were basically memes, but the second I saw the smoke hit the Dragon wing (07:28) I knew it was going to do well. Just look at how tight that flow is. Sky scoop was a valiant effort.
At least my cloud stays on the left A little After printing it, you kinda can't tell which way it blows because you just feel the walls knocking air around
I like how the attack angle of the middle more aggressive than the tips, creating faster flow in the center making outersides not only sucking air from front but sides as well. ( all fans does this but I think in this model this is makes the fan act like a bigger diameter fan )
Tesla turbine needs a tighter tolerance on its outer cylinder wall to the blades and it should have a ring on the intake side to make it smaller … but also like you said in the intro… it needs 10 times the rpm to be efficient… Also the mini looked like it would work better if it was round and had counter rotating blades on it circumference… love the show brother.. home grown fascination is what I love about TH-cam… do something you love and you will never work a day in your life.
Love the fanfan and the tesla turbine! I think the tesla turbine might actually work, if you put a stationary restricting shroud over the intake. it sucks a little air in through its intake holes, and it projects it outward against the outer rim (pressure on the outer rim) but then it goes equally forward and backward. Just put a lip around the intake side, so the pressure on the outer rim can only go out the exhaust side. I don't have high hopes that it will perform well, but it'll certainly be more than zero!
I like how harmonic the Dragon Wing was, legitimately 👀Like, I'd deal with the noise (loudness) if it sounded that good.~ I'm glad the fanfan at least did decently for a good joke fan. Little bugger made me happy.
I feel like the fan fan would be really fun to use in a much larger fan. Like a 200mm or something, so that the hub isn't taking up half the blade area
Yeah The limit then becomes how big of a square can you fit in a circle (big fan hub), and then how big of a circle can you fit into that square (little fan hub).
could you test a bunch of off the shelf fans? just to be able to compare the fan showdown submissions to a larger variety of fans. the a12x25 may be the gold standard but it is also heckin expensive
the fanfan reminded me of the dizzyfan. a friend of mine has this complex, where there are rows and rows of electrical cabinets. each one had a large external case cooling fan much like these except bigger. they run of 12V DC and turn on whenever the units reach a curtain temperature. some of them had failed however. i wonder if he learned his repairing skills from Mcgyver, because of all the Jerry rigging that was in there. for example, a random DC12V blower fan was thrown in to replace one of the original fans. on another unit, a cheap desk fan was just blowing in through the inlet of the old fan and the DC wires were just connected to a 12V lightbulb. last, but not least was the dizzyfan. he had taken a random mains powered motor, slapped it on a bracket in front of the inlet and attached the fan to it. he didn't even cut off the fan's power cable, witch was just whipping around and slapping anything in it's radius, making noise. and to control it, the 12VDC lines were just connected to a 12vdc trigger relay thingy. he had written "dizzyfan controller" on the little box the relay was in, hence the name. you could tell that it was on from the end of the corridor from the distinctive slapping sounds of the cable going round and round. it looked real goofy while it was on too LOL!
Can you take the top 5 from each season and have some fan playoffs? Maybe separate categories for fans that don't require anything extra to attached the frame vs those that do? And categories for "coolest" like the clockwork ones and fans that just look neat like the spiral tower one. I also wonder how the field would change if you moved up to 140mm fan just from the extra room to experiment.
Now take the dragon wing, and smooth it out, see if smooth is better or worse. This seems to have a large outside and shrinking towards the center intake with a full flat output. and the be-quiet wavy design.
could you sometime do a fan showdown episode that is just profecional fans? like test the A12x25 against hte bequiet fans and others? maybe even print them in PLA as well to test how the 3D printing process effects the preformance of each pro design
I noticed while watching the fan/smoke clips, that the Tesla fan was shoving smoke back out the front edges. I doubt it would perform "Lots" better, however, perhaps adding a lip, and slightly off-set the holes in the disk to give it more of a "bladelike" interior? or larger holes with tiny single or double angled blades to provide it with more directional force. One other possible design change could be to add the outside lip on the front intake side, and maybe add an angle to the outside edges of the disk pointing towards the exhaust direction to exchange the centrifugal force to directional. I also always wondered.... do the print layers in the fan blades act similar to the dimples in a golf ball?
We need to revisit the Tesla turbine and add a front shroud with an inlet that restricts the airflow to those inlet vents, and redesign the outlet stator to better redirect the edge flow out the back. But the drive motor is the limiting factor. I've seen a Tesla turbine used as a pump heave gallons of water, but it was hooked to a big 1HP DC motor.
Would be awesome to see the new first place in an extra high quality resin print...
printing in resin increases numbers by 2.1% you can easily math what the results will be th-cam.com/video/603hywgt92w/w-d-xo.html
Definitely
Indeed Resin please! :) make a 30mm deep version and then wow!
Exactly! We need resin prints
High quality resin print, and benchmarked against a resin A12x25
So....who's calling Tom to license his fan design?
MSI should get on that, their mascot is a freakin Dragon
@@Teajam TRUE!
msi hopefully
@@Teajam valid and true
Skip the middle man, make a company and call it "Tom's Fans" I'd buy.
Seeing if the Dragon Wing can be improved just by printing it in SLA would be cool.
printing in resin increases numbers by 2.1% you can easily math what the results will be th-cam.com/video/603hywgt92w/w-d-xo.html
Or even better, have not only the factory-molded A12X25 as a goal poast, but also a *PLA-printed* A12X25 version (maybe even a resin-printed version as well). That way you could compare how *any* fan would do if it was resin-printed (assuming that the layer lines cause similar losses among all fans).
Also the dBA would probably go down if it had bumps like the production quality ones.
The fanfan is such a riot. I haven't laughed that hard over a fan ever.
The fanfan has always been great. *ah, this is a different fanfan. This one is nifty for different reasons.
ty bb
So you are a fanfanfan?
I'm gonna see myself out
Lol the fact that it actually worked quite well is even funnier
And it _did_ move air, unlike some other designs we've seen.
Tom is a real one. You can’t expect to gain performance without trading off something else (such as noise) that man has the heart of a true engineer
I was interested to see how the fans would rank if we were to value FPM and dBA equally instead of only noting dBA and ranking by pure FPM. I realized then that decibels are logarithmic, so I had to convert those values to linear before we could get a proper weighting. Also, the columns won't line up here because we can't use a monospace font in comments. But you can paste it into a text editor if you want that. Anyway, here are those rankings!
| Fan | FPM | dBA | dBA linear | FPM/dBA linear |
| ---------------- | --- | ---- | ---------- | -------------- |
| Multi Stage | 268 | 40 | 101.59 | 2.64 |
| Turbo Pump | 405 | 43.6 | 153.99 | 2.63 |
| A12x25 | 495 | 46 | 203.19 | 2.44 |
| Angel | 485 | 47.3 | 236.11 | 2.05 |
| 92120 | 464 | 47.5 | 241.63 | 1.92 |
| Simple 13 | 479 | 48.1 | 258.97 | 1.85 |
| Gear Ratio | 482 | 48.3 | 265.03 | 1.82 |
| Variable | 430 | 47.4 | 238.86 | 1.80 |
| Hollowman | 435 | 48.5 | 271.22 | 1.60 |
| Radish | 459 | 49.5 | 304.44 | 1.51 |
| Warhead | 454 | 49.5 | 304.44 | 1.49 |
| Tangent | 459 | 49.6 | 307.97 | 1.49 |
| 17 Blade | 446 | 50 | 322.54 | 1.38 |
| Circumventor | 397 | 49 | 287.35 | 1.38 |
| Dragon Wing | 528 | 52 | 406.37 | 1.30 |
| Cheater | 477 | 51.5 | 383.57 | 1.24 |
| Waterfall | 423 | 50.9 | 357.88 | 1.18 |
| Double J | 397 | 50.4 | 337.79 | 1.18 |
| SkyScoop | 423 | 51 | 362.04 | 1.17 |
| Triskelion | 353 | 50.3 | 333.91 | 1.06 |
| Involute | 327 | 51 | 362.04 | 0.90 |
| Toroidal | 286 | 50 | 322.54 | 0.89 |
| XL | 286 | 50 | 322.54 | 0.89 |
| Uruguayan | 348 | 52 | 406.37 | 0.86 |
| 7 Blade Toroidal | 263 | 50 | 322.54 | 0.82 |
| 993 | 435 | 54.5 | 542.45 | 0.80 |
| Inverted Sharrow | 337 | 53.6 | 488.88 | 0.69 |
| Mobius REV | 273 | 52.6 | 435.54 | 0.63 |
| Thoroid | 255 | 52.8 | 445.72 | 0.57 |
| A12x25 fanfan | 263 | 54.5 | 542.45 | 0.48 |
| Tesla Turbine | 0 | 48 | 256.00 | 0.00 |
Values sourced from 9:34
That's some awesome work dude
Some crazy math dude it’s awesome, surprising what ranks above all
Hell yeah! Cool idea and baller execution to show the results instead of just wishing someone did it. Good job and thank you.
Best comment so far on the whole channel 👍 👍 👍
the song that plays with the slowmo footage of the fans never gets old. what a banger
I headbang Every. Single. Time.
Slowmo?
Are we watching the same video?
@YOEL_44 Slowmo at 7:53
@@TranceFur That is not slow motion, that is just regular speed.
Have you guys never seen a fan spinning?
@@YOEL_44He's so fast it's slowmo for him
I'm now a big fan of the small fanfan because the creator was able to think outside the box and put the fanfan inside the box. A truely creative way to reinvent the wheel while keeping the wheel exactly the same as before it was reinvented.
I bet everyone thought of it already, but I'm the only one who did it.
But I bet some serious fan showdowners might have done it and didn't want to submit it because they wanna make "good fans" that are "actually productive".
It also seems really low effort (and it kinda was). Just take the fan, scale it down to fit in the fan, scale up the blades to touch the walls, add the hub template, hollow it out, done.
The better thing would have been for me to do some cylindrical scaling to make the fans stretch to accommodate the larger hub, but even noctua's mini fans have about the same blade proportions as their big fans.
Tom’s Dragon Wing fan is insane! Well done, mate!!
We need to have a special fan episode where we take all the best parts of of the featured fans over the years, and combine them into an ultimate fankenfan! Imagine the Dragon Wing in a Cheater shroud for instance!
Now this is a proper fan showdown episode. In hub designs that attempt competition for the original plus a wild card for the lols.
Wow, is this the first time the A12 got beaten? I know it's not really a fair fight since Noctua also optimizes for noise, but that's still impressive.
To be fair, it's Noctua's 140mm design
The Dragon wing is impressive! Nice Job!
if the guy who made the dragon wing sees this comment... pls, share the stls
Yeah the dragon wing looks awesome but could definitely see a company steal it.
@@sirmonkey1985 just like that one from a year ago or so that was never confirmed if it was Thomas's design or not. I can't recall the brand that used it though. Almost want to sat thermaltake.
@@EvilCerealBoX It was RaidMax, though ThermalTake is occasionally called ThermalSteal for a reason, just not this time.
@@sirmonkey1985 At this point where the fan is shown on video pretty clearly, it would be easy for a good engineer to just screendump and reverse engineer the dimensions of the fan in cad.
On Thingiverse as "smog"
For me, the quietness of Noctua fans is a huge factor in why I use them, not just their performance and reliability.
and the warranty is very, very good if you ever need it.
Certainly - but 40+(++) dba isn't exactly "quiet" for higher end fans.
@@pr0xZen His recordings though are not in a proper sound chamber, so they are higher than the true value. So it's only comparable to other fans on the list in that room. Your own personal room and setup will differ. The fan db in a proper sound chamber is only 22.5 db.
That's also at full speed, and my fans never reach full speed, since it's not needed. So I never really hear the ten fans, even when gaming for hours. The pump makes more noise.
@@ScytheNoire If you never run fana at 100%, then comparing fans by manufacturer or lab rating performance metrics is pointless, and seriously misleading at best. At that point, the results and metrics of these "fsn showdown" tests are arguably more representative of deployment in relateable usecase than any of the 1st or typical independ lab party figures.
6db louder though is pretty significant, but it might regain some of that if it was actually made out of Noctua's special material.
thats true! or mabye in resin? :))))
Well if it was made of the special material it might still be noisy, but since Noctua said they made the material (something crystalline they said) not to warp under temperatures or age, then the fan get closer to the frame have even more performance and probably even noisier. But you could also run the fan slower or not as often because of how performant it is.
The main issue with most of those printed designs is the turbulence generated by the surface not being smooth.
@@BrunodeSouzaLino resin printing or using isopropyl alch to smooth PLA.
The Noctua standard impeller would regain the CFM and more just by running it at slightly higher speed.
I love the Dragon Wing's sound! It has a nice harmony to it. 52 dB isn't terrible either.
The tesla Turbine is missing allot of its key components. like the external shroud that directs the air over the ''blades'' the entire thing is supposed to be enclosed with a valve on one end and it blasting air out of the other.
Egor? Is that you?
Can we get another take with the missing components?
I would also like to see this fan attached to his variable voltage supply, crank those RPMs up to see if there is indeed increased efficiency.
I think you all are missing one important thing here, IT'S NOT A FAN, it's designed to be pushed by pressure to generate movement, not to be rotated to move air.
Not to mention the rpm needed to make it function even a little bit. I don't think the A12-X25 motor can hit 10k rpm.
@@YOEL_44 go read the patent...
and whats its current only commercial application?
as a pump.
i guess the rotary engine aka wankel is designed to be pushed by pressure too?
at which end? the rotor? or the shaft? felix originally designed it as, guess what? a pump...
yknow, ALL engines are just glorified air compressors?
and then theres the whole issue about pressure, velocity, and bernoullis...
"new principle of operation".
its not a pressure aka reaction turbine. its not an impulse turbine. its a fluid friction turbine.
pressure doesnt push anything. it simply tries to reach equilibrium.
Tom should get a deal with a fan company for their design. That's awesome!
Tom is the hero we need, not the one we deserve.
Keep the fan showdown within the restraints of being used in an actual PC!
Honestly the hard angle on the Dragon Wing has a smooth but more steep curve to it than the original Noctua fan blades. But Noctua's new fan blades yet to be released on their updated 140mm design, also, has a steeper curve; it's more abrupt/jagged of a curve though.
I would really love a sound based series where the dba and potentially a subjective "how nice to listen to" score are the focus. Could make use of the resin printer more and then rank all the fans based on fpm ratio
Maybe normalizing with power or so the rpm of each fan is the same?
Not sure the cost of that dissolvable support filament, but there is a cheap and easy way to get easily removable supports for prints: Use a different filament type.
If you are printing in PLA, use PETG supports, and if in PETG, use PLA supports. It makes them very easy to remove, and PLA and PETG are usually materials you already have around.
PVA filament is very very cheap.
@@jttech44 Depending on where you live, PVA filament can cost a far chunk. Right now just looking at general lists, it costs about the same as a full 1kg spool of PLA for a 250g-500g spool of PVA. An while I don't expect people will use it exactly 1:1, that is still not 'cheap' in a price difference for something that only functions as a support material.
@@DuribunWolf sure, if you use the cheapest possible PLA, which is a pain to print with.
@@jttech44 Which is what the majority of people who 3D print as a hobby will mostly buy. Which is why PVA filament is considered expensive, as really the price per kg even for more expensive PLA is better than you can for PVA.
@@DuribunWolf Tbh, most people who are 3D printing don't have dual extruders so, PVA filament isn't something they'd buy. Once you've bought into dual extruder printing, you've figured out that cheap filament prints like crap, and nicer PLA+ makes alot of sense in terms of actual material needed and wasted material.At which point PVA isn't really cost prohibitive.
*@Major Hardware*
7:44 I'm SO GLAD that you added that acrylic sheet to mount the fans on, otherwise this test would have looked like garbage, but now it's actually great :D
Well done Tom. Performance and good looks. Don't get better
Tom is like "oh, you want something better, here it is; it took me like 15 minutes to design"
would be interesting to see this in a noise normalized comparison with the a12x25, i wonder if it could still win.
serious pc guys dont care about noise! they want it runnin cool.
@@Kdog307 thats the dumbest statement anyone has ever made.
1:48 "Yo dawg, I heard you like fans, so I put a fan in your fan so you can fan while you fan!"
LETS GOOO MY FAV SHOW
I will take increased performance over reduced noise most of the time. That dragon wing looks great.
Noise Performance is most important to me.
@@WeBeGood06but it is dragons wing!
When I'm gaming or listening to music I can't even hear my PC when it's at full throttle. I'll take increased performance every time.
shoot any day.
I like silent and quiet computers when they're in the same room that I'm in. Having some turbine whine clearly audible unless I'm ramping speakers and headphones up to ear-damaging levels is annoying.
That said, if it was something in a rack in its own shed or basement or something, it can go right ahead and scream.
I've been a long time fan of the fan showdown. The thing with the a12x25 is its supposed to work in a lot of different configurations. Case fan, heatsink fan, radiator fan. It always does good. Is it the best for anything? not so much but its a great compromise between all kinds of fans. So just pure airflow is not a great way to compare fans. We need to take into account airspeed, CFM, static pressure, lifetime and efficiency.
For a solution that is cheaper than PVA, when the application allows. When printing with PLA use PETG for support material & vice versa. The 2 materials will not bond to eachother at all, so the supports just fall away.
Finally someone adding parts that create turbolence at the end of the blade. That's a key to make air turbolent and easiert to push. I think even better would be with an intake that "prepares" the air for the blades. That is, creates turbolent air (with fins) and with curved static blades (like the fan) so that the fan can push as much as possible.
Nice score Tom! (69.696 CFM)
I was hoping someone mentioned that!
Nice.
Hey! I watched all of the seasons. It would be rather nice to add a noise normalize section in the chart, since many many of want our pc's to perform, but quiet! I think somewhere between 38-45 dba should be fine, I'll let you be the decider on that. I know this is a lot of work, if you should retest a lot of designs, but hey! Free video.
Thanks for your hard work!
Love the fan show down! Ever thought of remaking the Noctua and using that as a reference? A storebought vs a 3d printed fan might give a significant difference in results. This might be a better reference point as all others are printed as well.
I'm sorry excuse me... A fan just DESTROYED the Noctua A12X25 and every other fan on the chart and you just like... End the video on that bombshell? Wow. Back to the studio. 😂
With the fan fan initially it was "neat, someone's done a full fan and frame...oh...ooooooh"
Nonononono
Wait wait wait wait wait
The fact that the Dragon wing's CFM is 69 repeated is just the best.
Curious how much louder the dragon wing would be pushing the same amount of air. if it's not much louder at a lower rpm then it may be worth it.
real pc guys dont care about noise.
@@Kdog307 YAWN! 🙄
Could you 3D print the Noctua fan case with clear plastic? It would be cool to see the fans spinning from the side during the smoke tests.
I hope someone does an owl wing for those working with long hours but still produces enough flow to cool even on a hot day
i would be verry interested in seeing how the air moves trough a radiator/aircooler. That way you can see if it has some actual air pressure or takes the fastest way out and slows down.
And you should scale down the Dragon Wing till it hits the same noise levels and then compare. Then you can see if it actually is better on simmilar noise levels and add the pressure test.
The dragon wing reminds me of the old bat wing fan I had a few years back.
Also wonder how well the finalists fans will do in resin.
Toms design is my favorite of the designs on display in this video it also had the most pleasant sound.
Tom just walked in and flopped his magnum dong on the table.
Bravo, my dude. Great design.
anywhere we can download the dragon wing fan?
Can we see a fan speed vs sheer airflow graph for the A12x25 fan versus the Dragon Wing? It'd be interesting to see its possible use in variable fan speed situations!
we got ourselves a new best, and worst in the same episode! Neat!
The Dragon wing is kind of cool but sadly you won't know that once it's spinning.
Also there are obviously more dimensions to fan design than cfm/rpm
Even noise isn't just noise as there are types of noise that are perceived more quietly. A low frequency hum can be the same dB as a high-mid squeal but the hum will sound quieter. And if both are at low volume to begin with, the difference will be even greater.
So it's a doubly good idea to try and get your fan to emit only low frequencies.
The dragon wing makes an interesting chord. Sounds like a car horn. which i think is like a major 3rd?
Noctua has a new fan on the way, and during their interview with GN about it and the R&D process that took a few years, they stated that their fan isn't optimized for pushing air through a radiator or for raw CFM. They strive for a sort of hybrid between the two styles. They want their fan to work really good as a case fan, and equally as good as an AIO fan.
That being said, BY DESIGN, they are beatable with a more specialized design. It SHOULD be beaten in these tests. However, it SHOULD NOT be beaten across both open air and resistant (through radiator) CFM with a single design.
I'd love to see how the Dragon Wing would fair against it for open CFM. It would be really cool to see Noctua beaten at their own thing
props for people using modeling software as cad software. i do that, 3dsmax 2014 is my cad software.
geometry is geometry. geometry + printer = thing.
The thing with Fusion 360 is that it's cloud based (other than the fact I can't do anything with it).
In order to export to STL, you gotta send it to the cloud, and they put you in a render queue.
I first tried to center the fan hub template to the center of gravity, and it would just make these null points, and there was no way for me to translate that point to the center. If I just had a python terminal or something I could figure out how to translate it negative those coordinates. When you first import the stl, it lets you center it, but never again after that.
Anyways, one render queue later, I'm in blender, and I just right click, align, center of mass. I've actually never needed to center something in blender, and it's been a good half year since I've used the program at all. Blender isn't known for their intuitiveness, but as a 3d modeling program it's pretty good. I even got an easy python script off of stack overflow to lay an object flat on the xy origin.
@@leifmessinger i prefer to store my data on my own drives. thats why i use gimp instead of photoshop (debating running my ancient copy of ps7 in a vm). id rather use old software anyway because not only am i used to it, but it was just better, and in many cases it still works, does the same job. anyway 3dsmax is good enough for me, and its something i already had in my tool box. ive done some game dev and know my way around various polygon formats and how to do transformations in code if need be. but i just export to stl and im good.
@@LordOfNihil The old run it in a vm and save the machine state trick
Photopea is what I use now. I used to use premiere but now I use clipchamp.
The dragon wing outperforming the A12x25, even within it's form factor is a big thing even if it is louder. I'm curious, would a softer material like PETg decrease noise?
You'd probably want to go even stiffer actually. Some of the noise is from the blade tips vibrating, and a stiffer material would "flap" less. Also, softer materials will likely expand more under the centripetal force of high-RPM tests, meaning you have to design with less efficient larger gaps around the edges.
Nice work with 2 color filament!
And it's a good-looking fan, too. I'd buy it.
right, it look good in a msi build
Any chance we can get the print file for the dragon wing? I’d like to do a small build with it
that's a very nice cfm from the dragon wing
Fan in a fan.
„Sometimes my genius,… it’s almost frightening“ - Jeremy Clarkson
Would be interesting to have some of the better performing and high selling fans included in the chart as well, just a few of them to see where they slot in among the printed fans.
WOOT FAN SHOWDOWN! YEAH :D
holy crap that bat wing looks awesome!
LMAO that fan - fan is hilarious!
Skyscoop was a good one!
The tesla looks cool but not surprised it didn't do well.
WOW someone needs to call Tom and give him some money for that design!
These fan showdowns are unreasonably funny and enjoyable.
Congrats Tom!👍
I wonder with the tesla turbine if you offset each one of the sections a few degrees if that would make a difference? Like rotating each one of the pieces by about 5-10% each, but plate by plate, first plate at Top dead center then the second plate rotated 5-10 degrees and so on? I could be talking out my but, though curiosity has me.
It's an interesting thought! My intuition is that, without any other changes to the design, an offset like that would end up decreasing air flow to the inner plates, due to the decreased effective area of the opening, and thus decrease total throughput. But I'm no aerospace engineer, just some rando who occasionally likes swearing at mechanical things until they work, so I have no idea how that would effect turbulence and air pressure. Would be an interesting thing to try! Especially if you had the appropriate housing and motor to use a Tesla turbine as a pump.
Wow, way to go Tom! It's nice to see someone doing their homework instead of just submitting garbage. 😂
I needed a good laugh this morning. The Tesla turbine gave it to me🤣🤣🤣
The fan-in-fan design is the PC tech-equivalent of Chrome Spinners on car wheels.
Sleeper/conversion cars are the most high roller cars
There's this one guy who sells ender 3 core xy conversion kits. That's probably the most baller 3d printer possible.
"Yeah I have an ender 3. Yeah it does a 7 minute benchy."
I had a nice gigle at the Fan fan and Tesla turbine smoke tests, they really were basically memes, but the second I saw the smoke hit the Dragon wing (07:28) I knew it was going to do well. Just look at how tight that flow is. Sky scoop was a valiant effort.
At least my cloud stays on the left
A little
After printing it, you kinda can't tell which way it blows because you just feel the walls knocking air around
i bet that dragon wing design could be further improved, which might help with sound. I'd replace my noctua fans with it in a heartbeat as-is though!
it would look good in an msi build
@@Kdog307 That's a really good point. MSI could easily license this and slap it on their GPUs and sell some case fans.
I like how the attack angle of the middle more aggressive than the tips, creating faster flow in the center making outersides not only sucking air from front but sides as well. ( all fans does this but I think in this model this is makes the fan act like a bigger diameter fan )
A12X25 Fanfan was fun. Great job.
It was fun fun
Tesla turbine needs a tighter tolerance on its outer cylinder wall to the blades and it should have a ring on the intake side to make it smaller … but also like you said in the intro… it needs 10 times the rpm to be efficient…
Also the mini looked like it would work better if it was round and had counter rotating blades on it circumference… love the show brother.. home grown fascination is what I love about TH-cam… do something you love and you will never work a day in your life.
I wonder if golf ball style dimpling could have any benefit
Love the fanfan and the tesla turbine! I think the tesla turbine might actually work, if you put a stationary restricting shroud over the intake. it sucks a little air in through its intake holes, and it projects it outward against the outer rim (pressure on the outer rim) but then it goes equally forward and backward. Just put a lip around the intake side, so the pressure on the outer rim can only go out the exhaust side. I don't have high hopes that it will perform well, but it'll certainly be more than zero!
this dude has essentially made a game show
Impressive, Tom 🙂
Does the Tesla turbine just need a cover around the outside so that air does not go back out the front?
I like how harmonic the Dragon Wing was, legitimately 👀Like, I'd deal with the noise (loudness) if it sounded that good.~
I'm glad the fanfan at least did decently for a good joke fan. Little bugger made me happy.
I agree I actually thought despite how loud it was it was actually a nice sounding fan.
I'll bet that Tom's Dragon Wing would perform even better made with a mould press. Those jagged edges of 3D printing puts a huge drag on the airflow.
I feel like the fan fan would be really fun to use in a much larger fan. Like a 200mm or something, so that the hub isn't taking up half the blade area
Yeah
The limit then becomes how big of a square can you fit in a circle (big fan hub), and then how big of a circle can you fit into that square (little fan hub).
The fact he had to sacrifice db for performance means the A12 is already a very well designed fan, nice to see. Love these showdowns.
excellent work tom
That printer is no joke!
I'd definitely get the dragon wing
could you test a bunch of off the shelf fans? just to be able to compare the fan showdown submissions to a larger variety of fans. the a12x25 may be the gold standard but it is also heckin expensive
Absolute powermove from gigachad Tom. Insane!
1:45 You know, when you showed it off there, i didnt notice anything about it
But this 1:47 really does put it into perspective, LOL
the fanfan reminded me of the dizzyfan. a friend of mine has this complex, where there are rows and rows of electrical cabinets. each one had a large external case cooling fan much like these except bigger. they run of 12V DC and turn on whenever the units reach a curtain temperature. some of them had failed however. i wonder if he learned his repairing skills from Mcgyver, because of all the Jerry rigging that was in there. for example, a random DC12V blower fan was thrown in to replace one of the original fans. on another unit, a cheap desk fan was just blowing in through the inlet of the old fan and the DC wires were just connected to a 12V lightbulb.
last, but not least was the dizzyfan. he had taken a random mains powered motor, slapped it on a bracket in front of the inlet and attached the fan to it. he didn't even cut off the fan's power cable, witch was just whipping around and slapping anything in it's radius, making noise. and to control it, the 12VDC lines were just connected to a 12vdc trigger relay thingy. he had written "dizzyfan controller" on the little box the relay was in, hence the name. you could tell that it was on from the end of the corridor from the distinctive slapping sounds of the cable going round and round. it looked real goofy while it was on too LOL!
Can you take the top 5 from each season and have some fan playoffs? Maybe separate categories for fans that don't require anything extra to attached the frame vs those that do? And categories for "coolest" like the clockwork ones and fans that just look neat like the spiral tower one. I also wonder how the field would change if you moved up to 140mm fan just from the extra room to experiment.
Now take the dragon wing, and smooth it out, see if smooth is better or worse. This seems to have a large outside and shrinking towards the center intake with a full flat output. and the be-quiet wavy design.
could you sometime do a fan showdown episode that is just profecional fans? like test the A12x25 against hte bequiet fans and others? maybe even print them in PLA as well to test how the 3D printing process effects the preformance of each pro design
Having other frames of reference on the board would be nice to have, I'm sure a few designs are already better than some commercial brands
I noticed while watching the fan/smoke clips, that the Tesla fan was shoving smoke back out the front edges. I doubt it would perform "Lots" better, however, perhaps adding a lip, and slightly off-set the holes in the disk to give it more of a "bladelike" interior? or larger holes with tiny single or double angled blades to provide it with more directional force. One other possible design change could be to add the outside lip on the front intake side, and maybe add an angle to the outside edges of the disk pointing towards the exhaust direction to exchange the centrifugal force to directional. I also always wondered.... do the print layers in the fan blades act similar to the dimples in a golf ball?
I'd like to see noise normalized results aswell, adjust the rpm to a matching desibel as the a12x25 and see what designs comes closest
The fans keep getting better, maybe next season we can try some noise normalized testing?🤔
Way to go dragons wing, GG Tom!
dragonwing, already for the name, and it being just as good or better anyway.
Why aren't you using the resin printer for the fans? Or some vapor smoothed ABS. I guess the overall roughness degrades performance quuite a bit.
msi should use the dragon wing in their pc cases! nice.
is it possible to get the files for the dragon wing someway or somewhere?
We need to revisit the Tesla turbine and add a front shroud with an inlet that restricts the airflow to those inlet vents, and redesign the outlet stator to better redirect the edge flow out the back.
But the drive motor is the limiting factor. I've seen a Tesla turbine used as a pump heave gallons of water, but it was hooked to a big 1HP DC motor.
LOL.. I liked the fan in fan one!
You could do a whole series of silly fans (like a middle finger fan.. or an eyeball fan.. etc)
The hand wafting one was my favorite th-cam.com/video/Hnlds6gPotk/w-d-xo.html
Gonna need to put that Tesla turbine on a drone motor! And/or a fair bit of a redesign.