Can This BLADELESS Fan Work? | Fans showdown S5E10 

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I'll post again so you can see it here. You can get a manometer that reads in millimeters of water column for 80 bucks. It's called a DWYER magnehelic. They have models that go from 0 to 6 mm of water column and another that goes from 0 to 10 mm of water column. I think it would be perfect for this show, and wouldn't cost you that much money. It would also be much more accurate than the 3D printed device you made. I think accurate static information along with the velocity tube is the ultimate test of a fan without a super expensive machine

Tom should build the dragon shredder, where he alternates one blade of each fan to see how it performs

Wow, the bladeless fan didn't come last! That's pretty impressive 👏

I think it would be interesting to take some top performers and see how they perform at different duty cycles. As we know, PC fans don’t run 100% speed all the time, so maybe there are fans that maintain performance farther down into lower % speeds.

Hey small mistake, At 9:19 Smoother shows 348 per minute airflow, but in the excel it is 248 which placed it at last while hurricane should have been there.

That airflow looked shockingly good on the hurricane! Color me impressed

I'd love to see the Dragon Wing, Shredder, and Noctua against each other on a chart. RPM vs dBA vs FPM/CFM. Basically run them all at several RPM points and see how the performance is. Most people don't run their fans at full blast all the time and the Shredder could be optimized for a different RPM. Throw the Devil and Angel in there too. Would be illuminating.

Now I can't believe that one of my favourite shows is a show about fans but here i am, loving each episode

It would be cool to see how the fans perform, and sounds like, under reduced loads. 25%, 50% and 75%. Not just at max speed. I think some of them might surprise us.

To answer your end of video question, I'd go for the dragon wing. Very few of my fans ever run at 100%, and my PC overall has a gentle hum at idle. More performance is paramount, and under heavy heavy load I'd likely be wearing headphones anyways. I'm intrigued by the hurricane as an exhaust option mounted on the exterior against a wall, or behind a cabinet, maybe with a cage. The outward airflow scatters the heat in all directions instead of in a cone. It could also be used to create turbulence inside of a case to help cool vrms, ram modules, or NVME slots. if used in a pull configuration on a dual fan tower cooler with 2 additional fans out the back and top, it might actually significantly improve vrm performance.

To me, quiet is always more important than looks, provided the fan performs well.

Dragon Wing - because I want my fans to cool, not just be quiet. Quiet is a perk, but performance is key.

Thank you for showing pictures of each fan when doing sound test. I never remember fan names and dont know which fan is going on without picture

Thanks for giving the Hurricane a chance! Was a fun experiment 😊 I'm glad it did work at all, and in the first place was printable 😅 The smoke test looked surprisingly clean! And it was also quite silent, nice. I'm curious what the community will do with that idea, I've seen many comments of how to improve it, or use it in different ways.

Adding a second test to all fans would be helpful. Put all the fans on a variable controller and measure the noise from about 20in. Then lower the RPM from maximum until you hit 36 dB. Then test the airflow of each fan set to 36 dB. I personally never run fans at maximum, and I doubt most other do as well. I try to put a curve on mine to be mostly silent unless the temps go really high. Some fans I've had (like corsair, noctua, lian li, etc) were vastly different at maximum RPM for performance and noise, but the most expensive ones weren't always the best when I tried noise normalizing them. Right now I'm just running cheap TR 120 ARGB fans because they are dead silent and still keep my PC cool enough. I would love to see an extra test normalized for noise, and I don't think it would take long since you already measure noise and test airflow anyways, you just need to get a speed controller and a jig to hold the mic a set distance from the fans to keep that consistent.

I like how the computer in the background showed an animated fire the moment you said dragon wing.

The hurricane did a surprisingly good job for a bladeless fan! I wouldn't expect it to compete with the axial bladed fans, but for what it is, it did very well. Would it have been possible to test it turned around (blade inside the tunnel) so that the airflow was going the same direction as the other fans? That seems necessary for a fair comparison.

It is a testament to the quality of your content that I don't click away as soon as you mention Raid

I saw the fireplace video going in the background, paused, and started one up on my other monitor. Now that I'm at the end of your video I could swear I'm feeling warmer on the side toward the fire. :D

Best thing on the internet, i love this. The hurricane is such a cool idea, loving the bladeless designs!

What you've created with the flappie-doodle thing is basically an old-fashioned mass airflow sensor (look one up for a 1990 Toyota Camry to take example). What you're looking for is a manifold absolute pressure setup. Design a manually variable gate and use a manometer installed between that gate and the fan to measure pressure, and an anemometer on the other side of the gate to measure air flow. By adjusting the gate, you can measure static pressure vs. airflow and plot them on a graph. On most well-designed fans, the relationship is not linear; there will be a point where airflow and pressure are ideal. Plug in values for RPM and current draw, and the result is an accurate representation of the fan's overall performance.

For the static pressure meter, just put the door on a spring. BMW used this design for air flow meters in all their early fuel injected cars in the 80s. The door was on a clock spring that gave it some resistance and linearized the output. Also, counterbalance the door so that the weight of the door doesn’t exert any closing force; only the spring holds the door shut. BMW did this by simply mounting the door on a vertical pivot. It’ll also be a lot more accurate if the zero point where the door is shut isn’t at 90 degrees. A little preload, like 10 or 15 degrees also linearizes it. Obviously this design isn’t used in cars anymore, because it’ll ultimately never be linear, but you can get it pretty good. Good enough at least.

For your static pressure tester, have you considered an adjustable spring? If you set a target for the airflow to open the flap, say, to 45 degrees, you could adjust the spring tension to restore the flap position to 45 degree per fan, then compare the spring tension values across fan designs. It's an approach similar to used in AFM designs in 80's automotive applications.

I'm curious how a normal fan would do pulling air backwards through the tunnel. Would be a good apples to apples comparison of the Hurricane to mount a bladed fan backwards.

Shredder for style, dragon wing for performance, and hurricane was AWESOME.

Efficiency is the key to quiet operation. For the most part, a 120 mm PC fan will spin at around 800-1000 RPM (or roughly 40-50% speed). Now, it would be fun to test various designs at these speeds to see which ones are the most efficient at moving air at a low noise setting

No me deja de sorprender lo apasionante que es diseñar nuevas hélices...Gran trabajo Major Hardware

the best way to get good advice on the internet is to be a bit wrong. i love the fan testing box idea. keep it up!

Regarding the non-linear flow gauge, you could drive a nautilus gearset so that initial movement is very slow but continued movement gets multiplied the more the flap is opened.

Shredder. Thanks for the work and sharing data. Merry Christmas

For your pressure gauge have the fan blow strait up a clear tube with small holes in the side at even intervals and a ping pong ball (or similar, slightly smaller than the tube) that will hover in the tube.

Maybe it’s a great idea to use a u-tube nanometer and a radiator for pressure measurement. Just place a piece of straight section in between the fan and the radiator making a pressurized chamber and connect it to the u shaped tube filled with water. It’s simple, you can measure both a positive pressure and a vacuum, it has a visual reference so it’s fun to watch and it has real life condition simulation. Anyway I’m a big time enjoyer if this channel keep it up💪

love the series. That hurricane one can def be impoved upon, but im suprised with how well it did though. Nice to see new ideas.

Dragon Wing all day, every day. My standing floor fan and my headphones/speakers put out way more noise than any case fan ever could. Give me dat sweet *performance*.

really shocked by the bladeless performance. super interesting

We all have more than an fan, so I would try both the quieter one and high performance one, together, on seperate fan curves and seperate headers. It's what I do now with my exhaust fans. One is top exhaust, very quiet. One rear industrial exhaust, powerful but loud. I run controlfan software which allows you to spin fans at speeds depending on the temp of a number of different components, meaning fans nowhere near the heat source, don't have to ramp up. All helps to keep it cool with a good volume balance.

Dragon wing every time. Performance is the measurement that matters to me. Keep up the great vids. Stay Happy and Healthy

I live in a tiny house and use a computer fan for exhaust. It is sealed up really well and the air flow is needed to remove moisture. However when you open the door it will start spinning the fan backwards. I think the hurricane would work great for this purpose because i think the it would allow for pressure changes without stalling the fan motor and probably be easier on the ears. Would like premission to print one out for myself.

A vertical tube with holes in it spaced evenly along its length(think mythbusters when they tested the terminal velocity of a penny), put the fan at the bottom, and a plug in the tube. Whatever fan can lift the plug the highest has the greatest static pressure.

You could add a pocket to the door at a distance perpendicular to the door to hold water and use a burette to add water until the door just closes (with a fixed diameter bleed hole) and use the volume dispensed + calculation to give the relative figure

I love this channel and this show so much!

for the static pressure device, why not a flat panel attached on 2 sides with springs inside the tunnel. then calculate the spring constant and the nm to compress the springs to determine force from fan

I like low noise and would like to see the Alphacool Apex Stealth metal fan get compared to other things on the test charts

Nice to see you back!

Easy fix for your DIY gauge: Instead of designing it as a "swinging hinge" design it to where it has a VERY light weight spring pushing the door towards the cage, then have the door slide along a rail using frictionless bearings. Or even do it without the spring, since that increases tension as it's compressed, and reset it manually after each fan.

I was hoping Tom would make an even louder piece, to spite the comment section.

- To measure pressure capabilities of a fan you may build a variable opening duct as a restriction and measure airflow at any step. For example, a 50% opened grille, with another behind that can slide and cover the holes. Or a 33% with two sliding grilles, or a 25% with three, etc... Measure both behind and in front of the fan to test any difference in a push or pull configuration - I did not expect the hurricane to be that good! - The Shredder may be "quiet" looking at the db level, but the noise signature is quite annoying in my opinion

Thought - could be a fun video idea. I really like the idea of the swinging gate device to measure static pressure. I think you could run a test to help you create a scale for it. If you were to hook up an a12x25 to it and control the voltage you run to the fan. Then, have linear increases of voltage and track the position of that gate to that. That way, you'd be able to increase the power of the fan linearly and compare it to the height of the door. Just a thought, love the channel.

Do what Bosch did for their fuel injection systems. Put that puppy on it's side and use a very light spring to provide the resistance. Put a MAP sensor before and after. Then you'll have volume and pressure differential.

I basically always have headphones on while I'm at my computer, so unless a fan is loud enough to still be distractingly audible through them, I'd go for performance any day

the louder one for sure, as someone who built a few pc's in the early days where they scream their Fing heads off idling, 52dba is nothing, typically your game volume is much louder then that or your wearing head phones so it doesn't matter and everyone is just super pretentious about noise now days. I have an old windows 98 for some older games and hearing that thing boot up sets the mood perfectly!

For me to choose between Shredder and Dragon Wing I'd want to see a noise normalised comparison. I wouldn't like to run a load fan very fast but if it still outperforms the quiet one even at low speed it would get my vote. On the other hand I could run a quiet fan at %100 so it really depends on what moves more air at the volume of the Shredder at max RPM.

If the quieter fan was sufficient in cooling, I would feel comfortable using 2 of them to increase airflow. That means one for intake and one for exhaust. Also, you could 3D print an airflow adapter that fits in your current flow tube. It would need to have a small pipe inserted into the middle with half the tip cut for a venturi effect. Then connect a hose to a carburetor airflow equalizer meter that uses a floating bead to measure vacuum pressure created in the tube.

You can still slow down the Dragon Wing to perform at about the same level as Shredder, but it still looks much better. :D Actually at some point you might do a noise normalized shootout among the best coolers.

If you go with the higher performance fan, you can run it at a lower RPM, ultimately delivering similar performance noise normalized, except with extra overhead when you're really are pushing the envelope.

The fan blows into a chamber. Coming out of the top of the chamber is a tall, clear tube with a regular pattern of holes drilled into it. A ball sits in the tube. The more static pressure the fan generates, the higher it will push the ball up the tube.

Hi, I have a suggestion about the visuals. May be think about using a polarizing filter on your camera to reduse the amoun of reflections on the acrylic sheet, so we could better see what's going on behind it

To make the measurement device valid and work here is an easy fix. Create a small weight system to the door (i.e. neodymium magnets that you can stack), find a specific value and aim to make that consistent by changing the weight, it is not too fine of a measurement, but it allows you to have a reference, by keeping the door around a similar level and then just knowing how much weight can be moved

The robot told me Farahdin got me rolling man.

Hi Tom, great video. What do you use to make the vapor/smoke?

The hurricane might be alright for strictly exhaust🤔 It doesn't have anywhere near a tight enough cone to blow air at or over parts that need cooling.

Hurricane design actually seems neat for a case fan. Something that doesn't blow directly onto components, but would still provide internal air as an intake fan.

Just a thought for the static pressure contraption. Perhaps if you used a light weight PLA or a pre-foamed light weight PLA and made the door be a spoon or curve that would continue being in the airflow as it rises but the fan would need to push more and more weight which would be much more linear rather than exponential. Just some thoughts

What you need is a Mass Airflow Sensor, I think. That gated tube seems like it’s better for measuring Manifold Air Pressure.

for the flowmeter thing, why don't you put a weight at the bottom of the flap? It will also not scale linearly so it will make the scale more linear. you can also make the pointer pivot arm longer to give you more precision on the scale and more travel range and better equilibrate the weight of the flap.

For air cooled PC's definitely the quiet one, but for radiator static pressure is going to matter more and will be louder anyways, so whatever is more powerful at that point. If you don't use headphones the loudness doesn't matter, but desktop speakers I would want highest airflow with minimal noise, and low noise being priority.

the shredder goes towards an idea I had, the shovel fan that was on ages ago performed way better than it should have; I think having a very thin bottom part of the blades will be good

I'll go Dragon Wing for performance, I use headphones a lot anyways, so I won't even notice

With a PWM fan, I want the blades that perform the best at my target noise level. Others might want those with the best noise level at their targeted performance. Either way, different performance at different noise levels make comparisons hard. Noise-normalized tests would probably be more useful.

I suspect that the response of your new test tunnel would be more usable if the duct extended beyond the hinge point such that the door was contained within the duct with the gauge left as-is. The response will not be linear even with this change and some leakage would occur around the hinge, but the air is more contained and doesn't deflect itself around the door, so more door deflection is required, increasing the resolution at higher pressures. Rather than purchase a manometer, you could make one with some clear hose, a board, and colored water. In your case, I suspect a 3D printed stand to hold the hose might look more professional. I saw some interesting ideas while browsing images in a search engine and there are some youtube videos as well, though I didn't see one here that impressed me. Good luck with whatever test mechanism you do choose.

personally i used to run my old system that sounded like a harrier jet preparing for vertical takeoff so i'd go for loud+performance any day. when im not gaming i can always reduce fanspeeds for sound reduction :)

A 4.5dB difference in sound level is quite significant. Considering every 10dB is 10x louder, that difference in volume is not worth the comparatively insignificant nearly 10% difference in airflow. I would absolutely go with the Shredder over the Dragon Wing.

If it was going in some cupboard somewhere, I'd be prioritising airflow, pressure, basically wouldn't care how loud it is. Given I'm not, I've already prioritised low noise above all else with the Noctua P-14s redux that I have more than a dozen of. 1200rpm of super low noise gentle breeze through massive radiators, with an essentially silent pump, and a large case. You could probably put a sleeping baby atop this thing while it's running benchmarks, and the only thing that'll likely happen is it'll be extra cosy from the rising warm air.

last year i send the 64B PC comresor which is made for static pressure i wonder how it would perform in this new season, also a have tip for better static pressure mesure, you could attach the fans to ballon on weight scale and how much the ballon would puffed up, the more weight would be applied to the weight scale.

My headphone isolation is good enough that i wont mind a jet engine as long as my components are cooled properly.

It wasn't that far off on performance so I would go with the quieter one. I do really like the Hurricane. I could see using that as a bottom intake fan since it would pull in fresh air and spread it across the bottom of the case helping prevent hot spots.

I feel like adopting a piston style static pressure rig would be better. Take a long spring of known force, make a vented piston as the face of it, and place it inside a tube that fits the fan. You could use either a load cell, hall effect sensors and magnets, or a couple external indicators to measure how much the spring compresses to determine how much pressure the fans generate. Adding a worm screw in the back would let you adjust tension minutely, and swapping springs would let you adapt for more granular measurements on fans that are very close in flow/pressure.

Dragonwing still lives in the back of my mind rent free so I have high hopes for the Shredder, the flow did seem decent but then... Razor Wind looks like it'd have turbulence off the back side of the fins but in the smoke test it was one of the most straight forward flows. Smoother had maybe the second best flow to me. The Hurricane looked decent, but I'm not sure how that flow pattern relates to performance as I'm watching. In the end once again Tom's design kicks butt though not as good as the Dragonwing. The new one might have been quieter, but I wear headphones all day.

Before I look at the results that smoke test looks like the best blade-less fan yet. By a ways. Great job. 👍 I think I would rather have the Shredder. I actually prefer the look. Also I would try to throw it on one of the fans with an extra gear so if I needed to get the extra performance when I need it and the quieter performance when I don't.

9:40 Performance first - You can always slow down a fan to make it quieter, and a high performing fan won't need to spin as fast in the first place. But if your PC is overheating and your fan is already at 100%, then it kinda fails at it's one job. That being said I still love the ridiculous designs, definetly don't get rid of them!

When a fan is on, what it looks like doesn't matter so much.

The sound of the Hurricane was surprisingly pleasant. And it still moved as much air as some lower grade bladed versions. And arguably the bigger the hurricanes outer diameter the better its airspeed would be. So do we dare? Experiment to see how big theh need to get to become unwieldy? To check where from category 1-6 the upper limits of the design could be?

I'd like to share my opinion on your homebrew static pressure measurement instrument. I think it's a good idea, and with some tweaks can be totally usable. All you'd need to do, is extend the measurement lever that attaches at the top of flappy door so that it's longer (and hence more sensitive). Then make the 1/4 circle scale bigger to match the longer lever, and then simply draw a logarithmic (or close to log) scale onto the 1/4 circle scale, so that the increased effort it takes to open the door is represented by the scale itself. You could also play with the idea of adding counterweights to the top of the lever, such that additional gravitational force is applied to the mechanism as it swings open to counteract the diminishing sensitivity. Finally, once you're happy with the feel of the mechanism, you can use some off-the-shelf fans that all produce different but known static pressures, to calibrate your scale. If you can get 3 to 5 different static pressure fans then you'd stand a half decent shot at calibrating it quite well.

I've never found fan noise to be a major consideration for me, so I'd choose the cooler, better performing option and take the extra noise for whatever penalty that applies. I've got some random Corsair fans currently and when they really get ripping you can hear them, but it's never bothered me.

When both fans move enough air to meet the need, quietness trumps a few extra unneeded CFM.

The Hurricane could have applications where you do want to draw air through a space but don't necessarily want positive pressure or don't want the exhaust going in one direction, I suppose.

I'm a custom loop man. I go for high static pressure to push thru the radiators and quiet because low idle noise is one of the joys a custom loop has. But a lot of that depends on the application. With just air cooling, In a giant atx-xl case noise can naturally be contained within the case sometimes so cfm is what you shoot for and worrying about noise is secondary, whereas in an sff build noise can get out of hand quickly, but you still need good airflow, and in some big cases as well noisy fans can start to sound like an airliner spooling up

I would chose the Shredder because the noise level is more important when you work

ive been waiting for this

I'm taking the dragon wing to be honest. people that are gonna want better performance are usually gamers that have headsets on blasting whatever in your ears so it wouldn't be all that noticeable if the fans is a little louder.

quieter vs more air. The age-old question. So for me I like as quiet as possible while having decent temps, It's a big part of why I custom water cool my systems.

You can make that original tester more linear if you shroud the sides of the flap throughout it's travel. Put two 'blinkers' on it so air can not escape from the triangular openings created on each side of the flap and only escape from the base. Still will not be linear but it will have a much flatter curve.

Dragon Wing!!!

Something that I would be extremely interested to see is how some of the top fans compare to each other when scaled. Does their performance scale linearly with size? For example, could the Dragon Wing be scaled down as a 5015 fan upgrade? Would make for a fantastic off-season video, or perhaps incorporated into a season finale comparison!

Seems like you made a mistake with the ‘smoother’ fan, it showed 348 on the meter, but in the ranking you wrote 248

For the questions of shredder vs dragon, i would put the drahon in my case, better cooling and rad fans. I can tolerate a bit of extra noise from my battle station

well a gravity push measurement device (vertical) would do the static pressure part, by definition. well you have the down force (gravity weight) and piston area, and height the fan can passively push static pressure.

The hurricane is basically a tesla turbine being used as a compressor. Generally the planes need to be significantly closer together to force the flow to run laminar.

.... I would go with the _Shregon!_ Which is taking 3 blades off Shredder and 3 off Dragon Wing, and incorporating them onto a single hub! 😏 Seriously! With 3D Printing, I don't _HAVE to_ choose one of the other 😎