Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

noctua.at

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 311 posts

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

#62

Post by wolvoleo »

imiric wrote: post #50
gblargg wrote: post #43

I always expected that black was the easiest color, since you just add enough pigment to wipe out any colors from other materials. Are they implying that that brown color is the natural look of the materials they used, so the simplest to engineer?

From what I understood, any color and material involved in high precision manufacturing requires careful design and thorough testing. They likely prioritize the brown color and material due to branding, so changing this to anything else requires redoing large parts of the pipeline.

Large parts is kinda exaggerated.

You have to redo injection moulds anyway as they have a limited life. And you can do a lot with materials too, some materials simply shrink more than others as they cool down.

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

#63

Post by VorpalWay »

wolvoleo wrote: post #52
petepete wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me too. All my computers have Noctua fans and I don't care in the slightest that they're the same colour as my parents' sofa in the 1980s. I have a couple of their screwdrivers too. I'm with with brown.

This colour combo is more 1970s than 80s. 80s was more gaudy neon and transparent stuff. The 70s loved their murky browns. OK PC boxes of the 80s and 90s were all beige too but they didn't have any brown. It also fit in with manufacturing in those days: In the 70s a lot of wood was still used, whereas in the 80s everything shifted to plastics. But whether you love or hate (as I do) the brown Noctua colours, the one t…

I love Noctua fans and I don't care about their colour. For all I cared they could be pink as long as they are best in class on noise and reliability.

They are going inside the computer where they aren't visible. The point of a computer to me is to be powerful while being as discrete about it as it can be (i.e. quiet and no blinking rgb lights). I don't have a glass side panel, I run an older Fractal case with aluminum sides with sound dampening instead.

I never understood "form over function", but each to their own.

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

#65

Post by moontear »

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 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.

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

#67

Post by moontear »

mikalauskas wrote: post #64

I don't buy it. It's just a plastic PC fan with some bearings which does not cost that much

And it’s quieter than many of its counterparts from other vendors. And it actually doesn’t cost that much - more expensive than cheap-o versions for sure, but then again significantly quieter, that’s their whole premise.

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

#69

Post by VorpalWay »

gblargg wrote: post #42
accelbred wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This level of quality is why they have my business. We had a CI setup with rpi boards that needed fans (uart clock tied to cpu clock so heat meant slowing down and the uart dropped characters). I got tired of seeing random test failures on some board and driving up to the office to replace the fan that had failed. And they were loud and annoying. I ended up frustrated and expensing hundreds of dollars of noctua fans.…

A quiet PC is one reason I've always removed the GPU cards from used ones I've gotten. The crappy little fans on GPUs that constantly whir up and down drives me nuts.

When my GPU fans went bad and I didn't want to buy a new GPU (nothing wrong with my 1070, it still runs the games I care about) I bought some smaller noctua fans and 3D printed an adapter plate (in PETG). The connectors were non-standard, but the signals weren't, so I had to splice together some cables with soldering and heatshrink tubes.
Post reply on HN