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Why does it take so long to release black fan versions?

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Re: Why does it take so long to release black fan versions?

#261

Post by thinkloop »

buran77 wrote: post #258
moontear wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I enjoyed reading it. Informative and showing of their processes and giving some intricate details. And yes, the end goal is to sell products which is fine by me. I take this over any generic non-saying marketing-blurb any time.

Normally I love this kind of article too because I consider it engineering, not marketing, the product name dropping at the end just reinforces the message. But either I'm missing some details that could have been spelled our more clearly, or the engineers were taking a break when the marketers were writing some parts. I'd love to stand corrected if someone more informed has details. > advanced polymers such as Sterr…

I interpreted it as: with the nature of fans and the associated vibration/movement, some gap is necessary and this is the limit given the precision of injection molding.

Phrased differently: a 0.5mm gap is the minimum possible to also be able to account for the 0.1mm (or whatever) variation in injection molding.

You're right to question the wording.

Re: Why does it take so long to release black fan versions?

#262

Post by kenhwang »

initatus wrote: post #257
BoingBoomTschak wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: I read HWCooling like everyone serious about the subject. These reviews aren't everything, the appalling QC that results in resonances or coil whine lottery isn't mentioned. In general, yes, Noctua is overpriced and Arctic is an incredible value, but when you want to optimize your silence/performance ratio, it's still Noctua, BeQuiet or (sometimes) Thermalright.

> coil whine lottery This was a fun revelation when I got into watercooling. You might not hear coil whine over a gpus fans. But remove the fans and put it under load and whoo boy. So this confuses social media discussions on the topic by mixing together everyone's reports, regardless of their level of acoustic masking. "My card has no whine!" says the guy with three 2000 rpm fans going etc. Gpu waterblocks seem to b…

I think GPU waterblocks are becoming fully enclosed because there are so many hot components on the back of the GPU now. They were designed to rely on random case air turbulence to passively cool, but there typically isn't much airflow over the back of the card when the stock cooler is replaced with a waterblock.

Problem becomes worse when the cards are driven harder because there's more cooling capacity from the watercooling in the front, but the passive cooling capacity on the back is still the same.

I used to stick a giant fin block on the back of the card to keep temps there reasonable. I'd love it if actively cooled backplates become the norm for watercooling.

Re: Why does it take so long to release black fan versions?

#263

Post by Numerlor »

buran77 wrote: post #258
moontear wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I enjoyed reading it. Informative and showing of their processes and giving some intricate details. And yes, the end goal is to sell products which is fine by me. I take this over any generic non-saying marketing-blurb any time.

Normally I love this kind of article too because I consider it engineering, not marketing, the product name dropping at the end just reinforces the message. But either I'm missing some details that could have been spelled our more clearly, or the engineers were taking a break when the marketers were writing some parts. I'd love to stand corrected if someone more informed has details. > advanced polymers such as Sterr…

Because it's spinning blades among manufacturing tolerances you also have to account for the blades expanding when rotating at high speed, and possibly working with 40-50 °C air from the components

Re: Why does it take so long to release black fan versions?

#264

Post by NorwegianDude »

buran77 wrote: post #258
moontear wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I enjoyed reading it. Informative and showing of their processes and giving some intricate details. And yes, the end goal is to sell products which is fine by me. I take this over any generic non-saying marketing-blurb any time.

Normally I love this kind of article too because I consider it engineering, not marketing, the product name dropping at the end just reinforces the message. But either I'm missing some details that could have been spelled our more clearly, or the engineers were taking a break when the marketers were writing some parts. I'd love to stand corrected if someone more informed has details. > advanced polymers such as Sterr…

Noctua wants their fans to last for many years, spinning at 2K rpm, with heat.

Being able to produce something with lower tolerance is one thing. Making it work long term at ~10 m/s and ~200G is another thing. Have you ever been in a car that brakes really hard? You'll move. Now, multiply that force by 100 and you'll get around what the fans must sustain over time.

Re: Why does it take so long to release black fan versions?

#265

Post by Marsymars »

randerson wrote: post #125

I love Noctua, and just wish they'd branch out from PCs and build more types of fans. Our lives are filled with so much irritating noise from noisy fans. Air conditioners, kitchen extractors, hair dryers, box fans, air purifiers, vacuum cleaners, leaf blowers, car climate control & radiator fans, just to name a few. I'd happily pay a premium for quieter things.

As far as air purifiers are concerned, there are well-regarded designs you can buy that use PC fans (you can order without fans and put in your choice of fans) and furnace filters. I just got a North Box Polaris: https://aidankepo.wixsite.com/northboxsystems. Luggable supplies an equivalent for Americans.

Re: Why does it take so long to release black fan versions?

#266

Post by mzmzmzm »

nerdsniper wrote: post #105
fxtentacle wrote: post #38

This is content marketing executed perfectly :) Reading it, I learned something new and interesting and they had an opportunity to show off one of their differentiators against the competition (low leakage flow due to tighter tolerances) and then at the end they casually mention the new product that has just opened for pre-orders.

I'd love more white, personally. I also don't understand the obsession with black. For me, black objects are very difficult to observe in detail, and that irks me.

I always thought the grey Noctua Redux fans were their nicest looking offerring, despite being their lower end. I don't understand how they settled on that.

Re: Why does it take so long to release black fan versions?

#267

Post by buran77 »

Numerlor wrote: post #263
buran77 wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Normally I love this kind of article too because I consider it engineering, not marketing, the product name dropping at the end just reinforces the message. But either I'm missing some details that could have been spelled our more clearly, or the engineers were taking a break when the marketers were writing some parts. I'd love to stand corrected if someone more informed has details. > advanced polymers such as Sterr…

Because it's spinning blades among manufacturing tolerances you also have to account for the blades expanding when rotating at high speed, and possibly working with 40-50 °C air from the components

I don't think that's it. You're referring to tolerances specified in the design. The article talks about the tolerances the manufacturing technique allows, and this process is an order of magnitude better than this article says. The material used and the design of the part influence how much it deforms in practice far more than the injection moulding process itself.

In their own description of Sterrox® LCP they say it has "extreme tensile strength, exceptionally low thermal expansion coefficient, high environmental inertia and excellent dimensional stability". With such an advanced polymer any deformation in operation has to be a rounding error compared to the manufacturing tolerances.

Re: Why does it take so long to release black fan versions?

#268

Post by Marsymars »

nottorp wrote: post #163

Don't Noctua fans generally go in builds made by people who like silence? In which case they'd have silent cases with no glass panes, because those are thinner and a possible source of vibration. They may even glue (opaque) sound absorbing material to the inside of their cases. In which case, who cares what colour the fans are?

> In which case they'd have silent cases with no glass panes, because those are thinner and a possible source of vibration. They may even glue (opaque) sound absorbing material to the inside of their cases.

I'd prefer no glass, but nevertheless just bought two glass cases because no alternatives that met my requirements were available:

* Fractal Design Torrent Compact - Best cooling available for a GPU-free, air-cooled CPU system. There exists a non-glass version, but it's unavailable in North America.

* Thermaltake The Tower 300 - Smallest form-factor case that will fit a 420mm AIO cooler. Only available with glass sides.

Re: Why does it take so long to release black fan versions?

#269

Post by lyu07282 »

ufocia wrote: post #167

I hope they're keeping all that data to be able to feed to ML and improve their FEA models, and to perhaps advance molding tech for everyone.

They aren't actually doing any molding themselves, the manufacturing is outsourced to companies in China and Taiwan, there is the real molding expertise.

Re: Why does it take so long to release black fan versions?

#270

Post by buran77 »

NorwegianDude wrote: post #264
buran77 wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Normally I love this kind of article too because I consider it engineering, not marketing, the product name dropping at the end just reinforces the message. But either I'm missing some details that could have been spelled our more clearly, or the engineers were taking a break when the marketers were writing some parts. I'd love to stand corrected if someone more informed has details. > advanced polymers such as Sterr…

Noctua wants their fans to last for many years, spinning at 2K rpm, with heat. Being able to produce something with lower tolerance is one thing. Making it work long term at ~10 m/s and ~200G is another thing. Have you ever been in a car that brakes really hard? You'll move. Now, multiply that force by 100 and you'll get around what the fans must sustain over time.

But that's literally not what the article says. You are talking about the design - Noctua puts 0.5mm because any more and airflow is affected and performance drops. They also use a super duper polymer that mitigates everything you mentioned. The article talks about manufacturing tolerances.

> Their influence on the dimensional precision and stability of the fan blade may be minute, but if the tolerance is only a few tenths of a millimetre, being off by a tenth or two suddenly becomes a problem.

> Achieving such small tip clearances is essentially at the absolute limit of what injection moulding can consistently reproduce.

I'm not questioning their engineering but the wording of whoever wrote this article. For anything with a clearance in the tenths of a millimeter, injection moulding doesn't even sweat, let alone be at the limit. Anything better than bog standard injection moulds get you better precision than "a tenth or two" millimeters.

Let me put it another way, if achieving a 0.7mm gap is "at the absolute limit of what injection moulding can consistently reproduce", what would you say consistently achieving 2-10um (microns) gap is? Magic? Fairy tale? Because LEGO as I said earlier is said to have 2um tolerances [1] over their decades of producing the bricks. Even a more conventional 10-20um (order of magnitude higher) still works.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47335237

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