Fan brands

[kuon]

In many teardown video, Dave nearly always says "meeeeh" when he sees the fan brand.

I am working on a medical product that need low noise high reliability fans, so the question is simple, what are reliable "A-Class" fan brands?

[Benta]

The "Rolls-Royce" brand is EBM-Pabst.

[james_s]

I've been installing Noctua fans in some of my gear with the primary goal being lower noise. I don't put a lot of hours on my stuff so I can't say how they are for long term reliability but a lot of people like them for PC applications and I do find them quiet.

[kuon]

I use Noctua in PC builds, but I have needs that are not covered by their products (metal, AC...). I'll check EBM-Papst.

[Monkeh]

Delta, ebm-pabst, Sunon, Sanyo-Denki, NMB..

[exmadscientist]

Delta, ebm-pabst, Sunon, Sanyo-Denki, NMB..

This, pretty much. Except that it's ebm-papst, not that their name is comprehensible to non-Germans anyway.

I've always had the best luck with Sanyo, personally, but it's not particularly important. All of these brands are good.

More importantly, choose a 12V fan. Other voltages, especially 24V, can get seriously hard to source if you need an alternate. Or you might not even be able to find what you're looking for in the first place. Do not be tempted by the siren call of other voltages; keep your fans 12V and future you will be grateful. (This is for "full-size" fans. For micro fans I understand 5V is very common and might be better.)

[Monkeh]

Delta, ebm-pabst, Sunon, Sanyo-Denki, NMB..

This, pretty much. Except that it's ebm-papst, not that their name is comprehensible to non-Germans anyway.

I blame Benta.

[tepalia02]

You may consider watching this fan review video. Reviewed 3 different brands.

https://youtu.be/QwftVMGPOiI

[RoGeorge]

Noctua are low noise.

In general, use the biggest possible fan at the lowest possible RPM than can still move the requested volume of air per minute.  The higher the RPM, the bigger the noise.

No name PC fans can be very quiet when undervolted, driven at 8V or lower.  Beware that at 5V a normal PC fan might need a jump-start voltage spike to start, or else it won't start rotating at all.

[Benta]

I blame Benta.

No problem, I'm used to it.

[Gyro]

The "Rolls-Royce" brand is EBM-Pabst.

Rolls-Royce make some pretty good fans themselves   https://www.rolls-royce.com/products-and-services/civil-aerospace/airlines/power-of-trent.aspx

[kuon]

The "Rolls-Royce" brand is EBM-Pabst.

Rolls-Royce make some pretty good fans themselves   https://www.rolls-royce.com/products-and-services/civil-aerospace/airlines/power-of-trent.aspx

That's great, not sure about the "low noise" part, but I'll give it a try

[coppice]

The "Rolls-Royce" brand is EBM-Pabst.

Rolls-Royce make some pretty good fans themselves   https://www.rolls-royce.com/products-and-services/civil-aerospace/airlines/power-of-trent.aspx

That's great, not sure about the "low noise" part, but I'll give it a try

Rolls Royce gas turbines are low noise in a very similar way to an EBM-Papst fan.

If you want low noise, Noctua is worth a try.

[CaptDon]

I have some low noise applications only needing a mild amount of cooling. I used 240vac rated fans operating from 120vac mains. It has worked very well for me. I have found that dropping the voltage on 12vdc fans is only reliable down to about 10vdc, Below that they may fail to start and just twitch. My mains powered stuff is mostly Rotron, my smaller mains powered stuff is mostly Papst. My 12vdc stuff is whatever I could find with real ball bearings which usually doubles or triples the price over sleeve bearings.

[exmadscientist]

I seem to recall that we had some trouble sourcing Noctua fans in industrial quantities, so I've tended to avoid them. Maybe things are better now, this was a few years ago now.

Beware that AC fans are absolute garbage and should only be used where nothing else is feasible and only low performance is required. AC fans are so bad that Sanyo Denki has a line of "ACDC" fans with built in DC power supplies (9AD series), because doing that is far more efficient than running an AC fan when you need performance!

[coppice]

My mains powered stuff is mostly Rotron, my smaller mains powered stuff is mostly Papst.

Rotron fans are usually robust and reliable, but boy do they make some noisy ones. So noisy it can become a problem developing with them. You'll get people from the next lab coming in to complain about the noise from some Rotron fans, and eventually management pressure to only run them for the minimum possible amount of time.

[Berni]

Delta, ebm-pabst, Sunon, Sanyo-Denki, NMB..

Yep this covers the major industrial cooling fan manufacturers.

Most of those fans are often going to be loud as they are mostly just designed for performance and reliability.

Consumer PC fan manufactures tend to focus on making fans silent. Often these fans have sleeve bearings rather than ball bearings because they are quieter. The better ones have hydrodynamic sleeve bearings that are designed to float on oil. Noctua is a very trusted brand name here, tends to be pretty pricey too. One PC fan manufacturer i like is ArcticCooling, they are a swiss company that manufactures all the fans in china. They have good quiet well performing, reliable fans that cost a lot less than Noctua (and come in a nicer black and white color scheme rather than poop brown by default)

[kuon]

Yeah, it is a bit hard because for my application I need silence, long life, sturdy (shock resistant) and high temperature (60°), that's some complicated requirements to tick boxes for. The temperature is the problem as most PC fans are rated at 40° ambient.

For AC fans, why are direct AC motor bad? It's hard to make a small motor at 240V 50Hz?

[wraper]

AFAIK Sunon is on par with best fans but does not cost ridiculous money unlike EBM-Papst. Actually I often repaired some equipment where both 230V AC 120x38mm Sunon and Papst fans were used interchangeably, I've seen several Papst fail with open winding but none of Sunon. Delta is good but for some reason their DC fans more often than not have a quite loud motor noise.

[wraper]

For AC fans, why are direct AC motor bad? It's hard to make a small motor at 240V 50Hz?

They are OK but way less efficient than DC fans. Also as motor heats more they may last less especially with sleeve bearing used. If you need longevity, you should use ball bearing fans only.

[wraper]

Most of those fans are often going to be loud as they are mostly just designed for performance and reliability.

IME Sunon DC fans usually are pretty quiet for given airflow/RPM. A few times I used them in PC, just crimped a connector on bare wires.

Consumer PC fan manufactures tend to focus on making fans silent.

Sunon, Delta, NMB are among the largest suppliers of PC fans. Sunon and Delta are what most often can be found in laptops. Delta often come with stock CPU coolers. Also most of the PC fans you see are not manufactured by the brand, they outsource it to some real fan manufacturer.

My mains powered stuff is mostly Rotron, my smaller mains powered stuff is mostly Papst.

Rotron fans are usually robust and reliable, but boy do they make some noisy ones. So noisy it can become a problem developing with them. You'll get people from the next lab coming in to complain about the noise from some Rotron fans, and eventually management pressure to only run them for the minimum possible amount of time.

Seen them in LECO elemental analyzers (more than 10 fans in each, 2 or 3 different types). What a garbage, after about 5-8 years all of their ball bearing fans either stalled or became extremely noisy (like grinder). Neither of inexpensive Sunon fans I used as replacement failed after another decade of use. Some became a little bit noisy at worst.

[BravoV]

... need low noise high reliability fans, so the question is simple, what are reliable "A-Class" fan brands?

Look for Sanyo Denki "Long Life" series, able to operate at -30 to +70˚C 

Also it' spec with max. 180,000 hours (20 years) of expected life, with 90% survival rate for continuous operation in free air at 60˚C (140°F). 

[james_s]

For AC fans, why are direct AC motor bad? It's hard to make a small motor at 240V 50Hz?

They use shaded pole motors, those are notoriously inefficient due to inherent characteristics of the design. They're cheap, compact and reliable but they run hot.