The God of Computer Fans

I wasn't expecting another janky cooling project from Alex so soon.

[@andrinschumacher9503]

no complaints from me :)

[@gibbyhale4217]

Yeah

[@bakutie]

we eatin good

[@MrConnerq]

They come in waves of completion, he can't do 1 thing at once because his projects take so long to come to fruition

[@Mr.Morden]

I'm still waiting for the super jank super effective 21 inch box fans from Walmart project. You can laugh but I did a lazy unducted version and it was super effective.

[@grug_son_of_thog]

Alex is right about the use case. These massive, ultra-high-flow fans are often used for circulation in server rooms. When I used to work at Dell, they had alternating sets of these ducts bringing fresh, cold air into the cold aisles and evacuating hot air from the hot aisles. They were so effective at cooling that people would go on walks around the local lake during their lunch breaks, then stand in the cold aisle directly in front of one of the ducts for a few minutes to cool/dry off before going back to work.

[@Linketh]

We have dual rows of these (probably not this model) between every rack exhausting into the back aisle in our data centre. The temperature difference between the front rack aisle and the rear rack aisles (which are through different sealed, double paned glass doors to access) is probably 20C. Data centers are the absolute most incredible places imo.

[@Kid574]

We use something similar although slightly slimmer to move heat out the top of our packed racks

[@goldmousegames]

Absolutely right! I've also seen these used in sealed, forced-air racks :)

[@PinkFZeppelin]

Every data center I've worked in uses centrifugal fans for this purpose.

[@alexnather7614]

9:16 it doesnt carrot all

[@popcap2004]

I used to work at a company making these for military and aerospace applications. We made them to cool everything from electronics racks on military planes to the brakes of commercial airlines.

[@grants7390]

​@[卐]Lakehuntist ⸜⁄ lol the fake verified checkmark

[@arubberroomwithrats]

@@grants7390 lmaoo

[@user-op8fg3ny3j]

What were the electronics doing that they needed so much cooling?

[@magnetic_aviator9578]

yep, as soon as I saw them I knew they were for the avionics & electronics bay of aircraft

[@Nomanspie]

@[卐]Lakehuntist ⸜⁄ I thought this was funny, until I saw the Nazi Swastika.

[@cheetahstrike2137]

I work in the chemical industry as an electrician, we have similar, though not quite as powerful, fans above all of our switching cabinets, where our PLC's and stuff life inside. They are mainly used to draw the hot air outside, since the cabinets are bottom open, and the floor is usually doubled up for all the thick wiring, where it’s also a lot cooler. There’s also climatization, which cools the lower floor.

[@christopherleubner6633]

This one is similar in size and flow rate to the big old Tarzan fans I used to cool an ALC 60 and 63 argon laser. Nothing like trading a few kw of electric power for maybe 250mW of teal blue laser light😂

[@DrathVader]

The reason it takes a while to spin up is to avoid large current surges. Smaller Delta fans behave like this as well. A motor like this could take upwards of 25A spinning up from 0 if it wasn't for the soft start. Don't worry, these have plenty of torque.

[@fridaycaliforniaa236]

Let me guess, it has a positive temp coefficient resistor ?

[@jolioding_2253]

yea many older but also a few newer angle grinders will blow fuses if they don't have like 30-50 Meters of extra cable running from the outlet to the grinder. And they operate at roughly the same power usage. though there are those that go way higher.

[@WhiteLocust]

I'm a repair tech at a lighting company. We use these guys on some of our robotic light fixtures and some fog machines. The lights get REALLY hot, so much so it melts if the fans are underperforming.

[@beefwantko7269]

holly shit thats metal AF

[@ghostinng274]

That's actually pretty dope

[@CynHicks]

Watching a fan melt from the heat it's trying to dissipate just sounds so awesome.

[@ShadowlordDio]

just buy old metallic fans for office desk from the 80s

[@WJCTechyman]

I just said I don't think they would be quiet enough for cinema use but if they are used in intelligent lighting like Vari-Lites or other systems, maybe they could be used in projection. Both tend to use Xenon arc lamps if I remember correctly. Or are you talking about something bigger?

[@tjk0102]

Hi Linus, EE here. I've seen fans similar to this used for cooling computer systems that go into airplanes. At high altitude, there is drastically less air so more powerful fans are needed to keep components reasonably cool. These fans are typically all metal to survive harsh environments as well such as extreme hot/ cold (-55C to 80C for example) and intense vibrations.

[@iPhonesuechtler]

interesting! 🛫

[@Enderplays12]

So technically they *are* jet turbines lol

[@starlazerpow8116]

@@Enderplays12 I guess.. in a way.. yes lmfao

[@mrjiggs8]

So you are saying there needs to be a LTT Plane to properly test these fans..... sounds reasonable.....can't wait for the video.

[@_multiverse_]

The 48v rating makes sense now, I'm thinking these would be used in the APU bay to maybe cool hydraulic systems.

[@krsmax82]

I keep coming back to this video as one of the genuinely funniest, most surreal videos LTT has put together. The crazy wigs for wind effect held back with zip ties, the nuclear-strength banshee cooling fan, Linus’ genuine shock as his cucumber is vaporized at 8:39 in a chapter named “Saftey Test” (their typo, not mine), a vegetable smoothie being sprayed all over a laser etcher, the empty stare and dazed post-adrenaline commitment to more madness at 10:10, stuffing TWO of those fans into a tower for a ridiculously academic and unnecessary benchmark, and using the suction to test normal cooling fans for backvolt protection. That is one hell of an episode on paper, and it STILL is much greater than the sum of its parts. Fantastic content.

[@Kruscle]

Same here. Probably one of my favorite LTT videos to date!

[@davidcobra1735]

I didn't even notice the zip ties until just now!

[@BudgetGamingEnthusiast]

Same!

[@Deathrape2001]

Lot of his videos seem deliberately dumb, like mounting the 'bitcoin mining heater' up high above the desk rather than on the floor by his feet = just dum. 2 go down that track, they should really just embrace it, like 'liquid cooling without water (using other crazy fluids) or 'super computer in a junk case' for 'theft deterrance' & so on =))

[@rodimusmaximus3912]

@@Deathrape2001 They did a water cooling loop using cement mix and it actually kept the CPU ice cold because of the massive thermal heatsink that is concrete

[@pyaesonephyowai7924]

U r right, these are mainly used to move cold air from row coolers to other side of the room. Installed in a cylindrical frame, works like a jet turbine on airplanes. Btw, I am delta electronics employee, every time u features a delta product, I smile.

[@ianbrown1708]

They look similar to the fans inside the UPS modules at the data center I work at. Ours aren’t dc though. We do have rectifiers that could power these, but those are used to power the telecom equipment. I’m trying to figure out why someone would use 48vdc to move air on the data floor when 208 or 480 is readily available. Unless that is common in other countries, idk.

[@strandtc]

@@ianbrown1708 traditional Telco data centers use 48v DC to power everything.

[@strandtc]

@@ianbrown1708 oh.. and I agree.. the Powerware 9315's I've used in the past had very similar fans for internal cooling

[@absalomdraconis]

So much for my guess that they were for in-the-field equipment pedestals.

[@OriginalPuro]

You are*

[@Minty1337]

i didn't buy these specific fans, but when i used to work in a datacenter, these fans would be put at the ends of ducts that lead directly into server racks in order to bring direct AC air to the higher end machines, since they aren't using any water cooling.

[@Aereto]

watercooling will add points of failure, but can massively increase the thermal capacity to absorb spikes from high load cycles to be dispersed elsewhere.

[@mechaniel0]

I was just about to say it’s purely for moving Very cold air quickly to a group of servers. Just installed some a few days ago and holy shit All you really need is 2. Dropped peak temps by 18c. The video does no justice to how loud two of those things are right next to each other. Im practically deaf 😂

[@skunked42]

Used them in top/ back of electronics cabinets to pull air throught the entire cabinet.

[@sameermohideen4913]

Alex has gone from being slightly uncomfortable on camera, to being insane and actually making Linus uncomfortable with his ideas.

[@RaymenNumerals]

A Very rare sight

[@lucid7783]

@@RaymenNumerals sight

[@jimblob78]

@@RaymenNumerals sight

[@Samyouell11510]

Thgis

[@xdsosa]

This man loves his job😂

[@ClappOnUpp]

Alex needs his own Mythbusters channel in LMG where he get's to test stuff to their limits. Gpu's melting; capacitors exploding... Nothing survives an episode

[@bleeb1347]

14:30 - fans like these are used for building static pressure in big data centers sometimes, and also when you need to move air a VERY long distance in a data center. I did some work in some very large finance companies’ data centers, and each “pod” is much larger than a football field. Each “pod” is literally full of server and network equipment racks, and a MASSIVE amount of air must be moved a very long way, so sometimes supplemental fans like these are used if the cooled air from the chillers needs a boost in a tight space to reach the end of a pod. There can be 10+ pods in a single data center too….But usually these are only temporary solutions until the engineers can go back figure out the source issue. Just think, larger than a football field and 40+ feet high, and they have ridiculous static pressure inside those pods. There is so much air being moved it’s insane.

[@JackJack-ok7wv]

Just a small correction, every +3dB is not doubling the "volume" but the energy. The feeling of sound volume doubles about every +10dB.

[@ethearnos6397]

Most tornado sirens are 120+ db at 100ft holy f

[@ProPayne84]

And realistically only give you around a 20-25% increase in volume in a perfect world. Used to have 4 15” drivers in a wall in the back of a Taurus. Gosh, I remember the high 150dB range days!

[@gauchette]

How do you measure "the feeling of sound volume" to observe it doubling?

[@sombrero4316]

@@gauchette you measure how loudly your ears ring afterwards

[@Silverbullet767]

2 items generating the same volume only increases the total volume by 3db.

[@EdmondsPro]

Whoever did the sound for this video deserves some recognition

[@saladgreens912]

That would either be Hoffman or Oliver I think? You know that they have credits at the end of the videos btw.

[@ph33lix]

Sound editor: "Man the noisefloor for this video is ridonculous" *Linus stands directly downwind to share important comment* Sound editor: (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

[@amineghostdog]

facts

[@JGFXDK]

14:38 Yes I have. Food displays in your local super market, heat exchange equipment (chillers etc.). This is for all intents and purposes an industrial product, which is why only places like DigiKey sell these.

[@charlie8brown]

So I worked at a theme park, and we used these to cool racks. Usually they housed audio amps, lighting controllers, media servers, show controllers, and animatronic PLC systems. My personal favorite use however was mounting one over my tool cabinet, and wiring it to a pressure plate so it turned on whenever I was working at my bench.

[@aronseptianto8142]

so it's high density power supply kind of deal?

[@MidnightMarrow]

@@aronseptianto8142 Suppose you could say that, these would be used in dense server racks, massive high wattage LED arrays etc. Anything that pushes a lot of power in need of high volume air to dissipate would be it's realm. The other thing is there's plenty of blowers n such that could do this but this form factor is what makes it the "one to use" over those as they're usually much bulkier. This as an example they literally screwed it onto a case vs having blowers in front of it, more compact and just as capable.

[@EnsignLovell]

Man's playing Minecraft IRL. True inspiration.

[@charlie8brown]

@@aronseptianto8142 like the other user said, they fit really well in racks based on their form factor. I mounted a lot of them to the top of racks to force air in. HVAC was typically close enough to the intakes, so it was pulling the cold air in. But yes… density would be a good description. Imagine about 12 Crown 70v audio amps per rack, times 6 racks. You could hang a wet shirt in between and it would be dry in 7 minutes. These fans helped. A lot.

[@SeanHodgins]

So, adding 1200W of fans increases cooling performance. Got it!

[@xanderguldie]

Who would've thought

[@deteiser]

how-bout push-pull?

[@SkyGamer911]

yes but it cost alot tho

[@MarcoPiampiani]

@@thealien_ali3382 that's 2400 Watts. Thats what my ENTIRE power socket puts out at once. That means I can EITHER run the computer OR the fans

[@alphax4785]

@@MarcoPiampiani Upgrade your wall otherwise you're not getting peak performance!

[@TheBurnsStuff]

This is what I like about this channel. They do things that some of us want to, most of us won't, few of us actually can. The ones that can, just won't.

[@mikelisteral7863]

i have 3 of these on my new 4090 OC edition

[@Random_4400]

exactly, a normal user would never pay 450+$ on pc fans even if they could afford it

[@lasarousi]

"they were so preoccupied whether or not they could do it, they never stopped to think if they should"

[@MikkoRantalainen]

I just hope they would default to wearing eye protection and hearing protection for projects like this. Lead by an example.

[@nocloo6829]

This was so much fun. I love how Linus and Alex complement each other with their earnest penchants for ridiculousness. Each has the answer for the other’s "Why?!": "Why not?!"😅

[@wbi007]

As for "where these are used". They often get used as cooling for entire racks with little to no back clearance. They are placed in the top section of a server rack and are powerfull enough to draw fresh air in from the bottom trough the entire rack. I had the little brothers of these cool my PC when I was way younger, ran on 230V AC and were monsters. Could only run the PC with headphones on (and even then it was barely enjoyable) but it was heaps of fun to just mess around with them.

[@terry2goss459]

@Taistelu_pelto 2 left

[@wbi007]

@Taistelu_pelto Suprisingly enough, all fingers are still attached. Did "grace" one once while they were running and that was the moment I realised how dangerous these suckers are. Still used them for 2years tho :)

[@user-op8fg3ny3j]

@Taistelu_pelto don't stick anything in there

[@PPedroFernandes]

Delta: "Have you ever seen a PC fan more powerful than the blowiematron?" Me: "No" Delta " *Would you like to* ?"

[@wildfirephoenix2262]

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@robertgarrett5009]

Delta make all the server fans for the dell rack mounts.

[@OmniUni]

@@robertgarrett5009 The Steam Deck as well, IIRC.

[@FrostSe7en]

@@OmniUni They used to: their fans quickly became known by Deckers as "the loud fan" and the complaints were such that Valve stopped buying them and started using only the Huaying fan ("the quiet fan").

[@OmniUni]

@@FrostSe7en Oh, they were the loud ones! I guess at least they're reliable!

[@charmio]

That power supply isn't nearly as dodgy as Linus thinks. It's pretty standard for a boost converter, they're meant to be installed inside projects, hence the lack of enclosure.

[@309electronics5]

Yeah, its cause linus is a tech guy and a electronics noob thats why he does not know that a boostconverter comes in that form

[@kuhrd]

Those capacitors were also very tiny and low voltage compared to the ones that you generally have to worry about killing you.

[@_QWERTY__]

what about the solder job they pointed out? does that cause any worries on the quality of it?

[@archietheproto7706]

Where's the boost converter made by apple that just plugs in

[@arianamirgholami9555]

Yeah my brain hurt when he said it's janky and stuff

[@Groknatarz]

14:42 - If I am correct, these kind of fans are used by firemen to blow air from outside into a building to create negative air pressure, for example to make smoke stay inside apartments and to keep the stairs clear so they can be used for evacuation.

[@nickhubble7582]

Hello Linus Ive used these professionally. In my use case it was positive pressure of a mountaintop radio base-station. The reason for this was to keep the elements out of the base station. They are super loud when you run about 20 intake fans. Love your content guys!

[@user2C47]

Was there a reason to use 20 of these instead of a single large fan?

[@jasonz8635]

@@user2C47 Redundancy, cheaper (Mass production vs custom, though not 100% sure on this b/c haven't gone looking for high power fans lol), split power (separate circuitry instead of having 1 20*600W fan [exaggeration but you get the gist]).

[@user-op8fg3ny3j]

Do you still have your hearing or have your ear drums blown out?

[@xeonicfront]

I can confirm that 24-to-48v fans like this are also used in cellular and microwave communications shelters in locations where it makes sense to save power over running an hvac when the ambient temp delta is sufficient for enough of the year. Most of the equipment in such sites is -48VDC or +24VDC so you'll already have a DC powerplant and battery stack in your native voltage range, no converter required. They don't usually replace an hvac, but they can act as a sort of standalone economizer in support of one. I've mostly seen them used in banks of one or four, but sometimes there will be multiple banks of fans run by a single bulletproof industrial mechanical thermostat.

[@h8h81]

@@xeonicfront sound alike these would make for a dusty computer.

[@nicknack125]

6:44 Love Linus being terrified of the boost converter yet still happily holding it while powered on

[@NoblePineapples]

I think one of their engineers told him it was perfectly fine, as long as he keeps his digits where they should be.

[@999ZZZ36]

Its not drawing any power. They only tested the voltage, so yes it was turned on but there wasn't any large amounts of power flowing trough. Pretty safe to hold.

[@evertchin]

@@999ZZZ36 thats not how electricity works. as long as it can produce that much, even without a load (or until you become the load), the power is still there.

[@Neoxon619]

Behold, the only fan that can air-cool the RTX 4090.

[@njebs.]

*1/5th of a RTX 4090

[@burdulinika2005]

Naaah you'll still need water for that

[@youisyellow]

1/100qd

[@Daisykilla]

You mean half of whats needed for the 13000k

[@ChillKG]

And consumes same amount of Power

[@郭家毓-t4i]

According to my experience, this is usually used for server racks, not the conventional type, it may be a closed computing node, they usually have limited ventilation openings, so a large airflow fan is required to support air change efficiency in such a situation.

[@raggedyattorney4745]

These are my favorite types of LTT videos. I love when it's a few nerdy people just seeing how crazy they can get with random tech they find.

[@TheHammerGuy94]

uhm, mad scientists??? LTT engineers are literally mad scientists for PC stuff Sketchy DIY heat sinks Frankensteined Chillers DIY Thermal pastes Mismatched RAM kits Shunt-modded GPUs These are things mere mortals wouldn't dare even try to keep their sanity intact.

[@SunIsLost]

Yea

[@Solruil]

@@TheHammerGuy94 also ac cooler was mad

[@justinsalazar7182]

100% agree

[@grozaphy]

Alex and his jank

[@MartinAlejandroLiguori]

"That was honestly terrifying" Concerned Linus: "Yeah" "Do you want to see how fast it can go?" Concerned Linus: "Yeah"

[@hammadmithani]

Best part of the video 😂

[@theswaff699]

concerned Linus and curious Linus

[@gsuberland]

I've seen fans like these used in large-scale LED video walls, like you'd see at Eurovision or other massive events. The total power draw for walls like that is typically in the range of several megawatts (they come with their own generator trucks!), and you can't rely on passive convection to get the hot air to the AC ducts because otherwise the whole stage would be unbearably hot. Panel sections are divided into vertical channels and fans suck air up the back and out into overhead ducting.

[@dominicstephens781]

i have used a similar fan at work to replace a faulty one on a CNC swiss screw machine. The fan was used to cool the main spindle.

[@Vortex1988]

This reminds me of when I first started building computers in 2008. After months of owning my first build, I decided that I should really have a front intake fan, since I only had a 120mm rear exhaust fan and an 80mm intake fan on the side panel. I started looking around for fans on Newegg, and I found a 120mm fan from Sunon that had some unreal airflow numbers. Either the noise level wasn't specified in the listing, or I just didn't think to look for one. I remember thinking to myself, "why doesn't everyone buy these?" I found out the answer to that question after installing it and booting up my PC only to hear a jet plane taking off in my room. I promptly turned it off, returned it, and bought a fan from Cooler Master instead.

[@musicbycanofficial]

😂😂😂😂

[@danieldvora3637]

lol thats an awesome story. thanks for the chuckle.

[@Skylancer727]

Same. I currently have the 3000rpm noctua fans as I was mining on my card briefly and wanted to protect the memory (I have 3090 so it was a serious concern). So I waterblocked it and bought those cards. Well they work, but god damn are they loud. You could hear them from the top of the stairs when the system is doing anything. So I downloaded Argus Monitor and massively tuned them to hell. Most fan controlling software was worthless for controlling them as was the bios as many restrict control below 40%, but 40% of a 3000rpm fan is still over 1200rpm. Argus let me even control the speed the fans start spinning up which most other programs didn't (as it risks damaging them if it doesn't get enough power to kick in). Have them set to continually run at 10% speed and start spinning at 30% so whenever I do anything I hear it rev up and then turn back off. But if I'm playing a game they run consistently at a nice pace so it's not distracting. It's more opening and closing programs that is annoying. Still, software can never solve it when the system turns on as it still sounds like my brother's PS3 he bought on ebay and never cleaned out. Probably will be using different fans in future builds...

[@mattt525]

I love yhis story lol

[@trpstrincllc4866]

Had a silverstone fan in 2008ish. FM121 46 db 125 cfm.

[@timotius111]

17:58 Small correction: 3db is a doubling of power, 6db is a doubling of the pressure an 10db is a doubling of perceived loudness.

[@pascha4527]

Yes, this is true.

[@wibblewobble1934]

Came to say the same thing but you beat me to it :D

[@JoseLgamer05]

This fan takes the expression "My computer sounds like a jet engine" to a whole another level

[@LordPoshnameVonPlumbingparts]

"But them temps brah".

[@ismaeltorres3219]

PS3/4 users can relate. Nothing like good ole PlayStation jet engine sound

[@Ferrari255GTO]

This is the setup that russian dude on CS has

[@RickMyBalls]

other

[@JoseLgamer05]

@@ismaeltorres3219 Or gaming laptop users, at least some. Yeah ps4s were loud af too

[@moostomp]

In regards to a practical usage for these kinds of fans. I worked with green coffee bean storage at a coffee roaster. Ideal conditions being like 60°f and 60% humidity or something ballpark. We also wanted to move air to keep pooling humidity and condensation during winter. I could see these kinds of fans being excellent in a small footprint building or with bad exhaust allowance in smaller buildings. Especially if you needed to vent smoke from a small room or keep a positive pressure room to keep smoke out of your bean storage. But I don't know if this specific kind of fan would be practical over the other options that I've seen. It does move a lot of air in a relatively small form factor (specifically in regards to commercial use). 600W may be the cost break point for this solution. A commercial 16 inch fan from home depot that costs 100$, and pushes 1600 CFM at 1.6amps at US wall current; or about 190 watts. Would be more cost effective in most practical situations.

[@SpyAlelo]

We used these at HPE in our prototype testing racks, but we did have PWM controllers for them. You can actually control the PWM with the blue wire, the yellow wire is the speed sense wire. So technically, yes, you can actually wire them up to the PC and let it control their speed.

[@marcel1416]

Could you hook up the blue and yellow wire to a PWM fan connector, while having the power externally provided like in the video, and control the fan with fan curves, just like normal fans? Or do they need the power also hooked up to the fan header?

[@Astra3yt]

@@marcel1416 Yes you can definitely do that with common ground, aka connect the ground to the external PSU and to the motherboard, then you can connect the PWM wires etc. I used to do that with my Raspberry Pi. However, these fans may be designed for different voltage of the PWM provided by the motherboard and even if they are, you would want to have these two circuits isolated from each other with like a controller that passes through your sense readings and PWM controls, it's better to fry a controller than a motherboard.

[@dragonxx444]

Thats a BIG "technically" 🤣

[@LtdJorge]

​@@Astra3yt the PWM is probably 5v

[@yuxuanhuang3523]

@@Astra3yt I would probably isolate the two circuits with something like a photocoupler, which is way cheaper and easier. I wonder what the computer would do with these, would it PWM them to max speeds or would it settle them at a more reasonable setting? I am against putting unknown things into common ground configuration, because you never know when these sketchy modules decided to do common VCC (yes that is a thing. For instance some LED strips would do that and you need common +12V modules to be able to control properly). If you are really certain the voltages are all good and the devices have common ground referenced to the grounded pin on the AC input side, you could technically connect directly, but still not recommended.

[@outbackshaqYT]

I would love to see a "fanless" focused set of cooling products used in this case with those fans, or maybe server style cooling that is meant to be cooled by a server fan.Just for the sake of excess

[@MasterThief117]

Or you can use actual server fans so when you play a flight simulator you get better immersion with realistic jet engine sounds 🤣

[@TheHavocInferno]

fanless focused (aka passive) heatsinks don't perform great with fans. They're usually made with wide fin gaps and thicker fins to increase convective dissipation. This unintuitively also means they don't scale well with high airflow, as most of that high airflow is pushed through the wide fin gaps without actually touching any surface area and carrying away heat. It's why some heatsinks like the Thermalright Macho B/Grand perform very well with low speed fans, but don't scale with high fan speed and then lose to tighter heatsinks of similar size.

[@AnyNotEverything]

have you seen their table of radiators?

[@outbackshaqYT]

@@AnyNotEverything I have, it's a wonderful hunk of metal :D

[@outbackshaqYT]

@@TheHavocInferno I wasn't aware of those issues! Though I'd still love to see these fans being used in some sort of other project regardless

[@thndrlngs]

I had 2 fans slightly less beefy than this one installed in a PC case many years ago. They came out of an old commercial Xerox machine from the mid-late 80's that we disassembled in my high school vocational electronics class. I still have them to this day some 20+ years later. It got tons of laughs and questions at LAN parties and such. They had their own PSU in a separate case that sat beside the PC case and had a control panel with aviation surplus shrouded "arm/disarm" switches for power and a few switches to make it run at specific RPMs or they could be bypassed and controlled by a massive rheostat. The fan PSU had an old vintage analog RPM gauge that was salvaged from an old hydroelectric substation that I'd installed LED backlighting in and matching sets behind the fans that would progressively grow brighter and change from green to yellow to orange to red as it neared max speed. It was so much overkill, impractical, and absurd and I loved it. I ended up disassembling all of that a long time ago and relegating them to run at a lower RPM than initially intended because it was just ridiculous. I just went and looked and they are NMB 5920PL-07W- B70-D00 48v DC brushless fans. They're 172mm x 150mm x 50mm, 1.45 Amps, 24.5W, spin at 4000 RPM and move 300 CFM or 8.5 m³/min. Static pressure rating from a single fan is 226.5 Pa, and it's a whisper quiet 63.2 dBA. This was a fun vid and I'm glad dumb stuff like this is still being done! (edited to correct model # and specs)

[@EntityVsEntityInteractions]

I just love the idea of a ridiculous military-grade looking cooling solution with a bunch of bells and whistles - having to flip a bunch of switches to even get it to work would freak so many people out, amazing.

[@JackHalfTheMan]

What a joy to read this. Thank you so much for sharing! I haven't had a LAN party in a couple years and I need to fix that stat

[@Deathrape2001]

They're designed 2 B efficient 4 the huge air flow, not quiet. Slowing them down is dumb, because U can $ell them high & buy something 'slow & quiet' much cheaper =) Or simply get PCs used that R quiet in the first place, like 4 instance a Dell with the 'stepped stair case' style front, like T5810.

[@karehaqt]

I'd love to see some pictures of this.

[@cescimes]

@@Deathrape2001 its 2023, why are you still using 2's and 4's instead of "to"s and "for"s?

[@Manice08]

I work with large machines that make paper and plastic bags. The electronic enclosures are roughly 3'x8' they have fans like these on the end and pull air through the entire enclosure. Idk if they run this fast but what I can image in a similar industrial electronics cabinet Alternatively they will have an air conditioner hooked to them. Lotta electronics in a large enclosed box.

[@Seraph.G]

This video coming out the day after the AliExpress chiller video really demonstrates how comfortable Alex has gotten with incredibly uncomfortable cooling systems

[@zfish1]

Hey Linus, I actually use fans just like these at work. We have about 80 robots and each one has its own controller cabinet filled with the CPU a few servo-packs, device net controllers and a few other electronic components. The controller cabinets are powered 24/7 and get ridiculously hot. they have about 4 of these on the back of the cabinet exhausting air. we also use them in large 480v 3 phase 400-600amp cabinets all over our factory, many of the cabs get pretty hot since they are packed with relays and contactors that are powered pretty much 24/7. lots of heat in and around the cabinets

[@turinggirl6432]

we use them for cooling industrial amplifiers for radios

[@NoeticSystem]

At my workplace, we had big industrial control cubicles with Siemens PLCs in them that had Delta 24v fans. I had no idea Delta made a 48v monster like this. This looks like a fun fan for a project, like an intake fan for a big homemade wooden or clear plexi enclosure with half a dozen different barebones ATX mounts inside. Kinda loud, though.

[@stratixmedia]

@@NoeticSystem As an AB guy, Siemens makes me shiver. My experience with TIAPortal and Step7 is limited to a 16 year old oven with statement logic in Swiss Dutch 😅

[@stratixmedia]

@@VertexDigitalArts Panel AC units are nice for 4 months. My facility makes automotive carpet and sound insulation, and cleaning Panel AC units doesn’t seem to be on the maintenance managers priority list lol

[@realtimeflies4679]

Great effort by audio engineers for making even the noise sound clean

[@EwingTaiwan]

Exactly my thought, Kudos to the audio guys. 95+db environment noise is not something you come across everyday

[@sithlordmaster181]

@@EwingTaiwan I come across it literally every day

[@bluemamba5317]

@@sithlordmaster181 Your partner is a loud sleeper as well, huh?

[@LegionRRTX]

@@sithlordmaster181 thats what you get for deciding to have kids.

[@vermilion7777]

That's a silent system, because you become deaf after an hour...

[@leeward6762]

Love how they introduced Alex to the channel as an expert "engineer". 🤣

[@dereckguerra6863]

all my Electrical Engineering professors are like this when its not a lecture session and sometime they still are in lecture

[@TriloByte101]

well he is a expert engineer actually... edit: change actually to kinda... he is effected by linus's dorkiness

[@lusteraliaszero]

but.. he is an engineer, that's his field of expertise, right?

[@handlemonium]

A "janky abomination" is an ideal idea of an experiment of many engineers

[@Pfeifender]

@@lusteraliaszero no he didnt finish his studies

[@larryrodriguez1977]

I still have 7 of these fans in my garage. I used them on pump control panels with dual vfds rated at 300 amps and a massive plc system. these systems are usually stuffed into small spaces and with little airflow so to compensate we decided to use these fans. honestly after implementing these fans more of our customers had less downtime due to electronics overheating. no one is near these systems so they can be as loud as they want to be.

[@vinno97]

Is the continuous 600W power draw negligible for most customers or is temperature controlled?

[@larryrodriguez1977]

@@vinno97 The 600+ watts is negligible when taking into account that each motor pulls 75+ amps at full load. Since using these I had a system that would fail, heat related, that went from an issue to no issue. I tied the start wire into the main contactor so the fan only runs when the system does

[@bradleymorgan8223]

one single fan drawing more power than most people's entire computers excites me to no end.

[@TheArmin]

3 of these would solve the polar ice caps melting issue.

[@Tulip_bip]

@@TheArmin 4 would start an ice age

[@MyStrawberry-ee4qb]

We use these to cool down terminals installed outside and having minimal ventillation, becuase of safety reasons. They are especially useful in the summer, when the housing of the electronics are metal. Mostly we make stainless steel housings. Also you need this type of cooling for charging stations for cars, that very loud noise when you start to charge your car is a type of cooler like this and even with it the inside temperature goes to insane territory in the summer when the chargers are in use.

[@rightwingsafetysquad9872]

In telecom, it is very common for computer equipment to run on -48V DC. That's nominal voltage, based on 12 lead acid cells in series, so they actual voltage will be 54-56V. I've seen these fans in base stations for Verizon and AT&T cell sites as a backup/supplement for the primary climate control system.

[@pierrekinbrand]

48v is 24 lead acid cells, they’re nominally about 2v each. Maybe you’re remembering some kind of 2s pair of cells or something?

[@qgame4941]

Tales from Medschool: The reason you get used to super high volume is two muscles in your ear: The M. stapedius will reduce the hearing sensibility by kind of blocking your middle ear bones (it also does that when speaking so you are not too loud for yourself) The M Tensor tympany will span out the ear drum and thus create a surface more reflective to high sound pressure. Working together these protect your hearing by deflecting sound and reducing the amplification

[@anxiousearth680]

Interesting. I thought it was just a mental thing. I usually have to crank the volume down when I first use the computer for the day, eventhough it's the same setting from yesterday.

[@qgame4941]

@@anxiousearth680 the is a mental component to it because you can reduce the impact of all your senses except smelling significantly, but there is also the anatomical component of it

[@fireballyt3676]

I don't think I got this

[@qgame4941]

@@fireballyt3676 sorry for only replying now. In more pc terms it goes as follows: Your thalamus is the Windows soundmixer you can just ignore or turn down the volume of something unimportant, also here is were noise suppression happens The tensor tympani basically acts like a clipping filter where really loud noises get deflected by the eardrum it works by basically turning up the reflectiveness of the eardrum making it from a microphone into a mirror The stapedius is the nob on your amplifier where you csn turn down the amplification to make the incoming sound quieter, but on a hardware level so to say.

[@FahimMahbub89]

Good old med days... it's been more than a decade since i heard those muscle names..

[@L0PREZ]

I dont think I have ever seen Linus look genuinely concerned before. This was a great vid.

[@mecha-sheep7674]

Well, this was probably one of their most dangerous project. They could have been killed by the power booster and maimed by the fans.

[@mytube9182]

We call it "workshop cooler" here in a tropical country. It keeps workers comfortable in a mechanical workshop under 40 °c. It's exactly the same thing, made in China, but it's ~42 USD here (Delta fans are available all over Taobao e-market). I'm afraid you were scammed, sir.

[@vasilebandila2502]

And then is level 2: the industrial air compressors :) In one case of underground tunnel ventilation during the digging stage, one of them was mounted and started, by the time people realised it had an unfinished pipe outside which was turned towards the ground it already dig a 2 meters crater in the ground in just few minutes.

[@guitaristkuro8898]

I didn’t even know a 600W computer fan was possible.

[@FrantiC119]

Wouldn't that be something like $1k a year to run this thing alone at full power nonstop?

[@விஷ்ணு_கார்த்திக்]

Its basically an industrial fan

[@martijnderidder861]

@@FrantiC119 For me it would cost 3000 euros to leave it on fulltime

[@FrantiC119]

@@martijnderidder861 Well that's kind of your fault for not being located on top of a lot of a bunch of oil. I hope you learned your lesson.

[@martijnderidder861]

@@FrantiC119 I got solar

[@justinrutledge1221]

I used these a lot in VFD cabinets in the industrial manufacturing plants I used to work at. The VFD cabinets were generally either outside close to the motors, or in central VFD rooms that could get extremely hot. Especially in cases where the VFD also had brake resistors built in.

[@macattack123mattc3]

For those who don't know: VFD (should) mean Variable Frequency Drive. It's a type of motor driver.

[@LunaMoon_32]

Did you ever have injuries? Like, that cucumber was obliterated.

[@lowkeygymrat]

@@LunaMoon_32 Only people allowed inside those cabinets are usually maint. or a tech/engineer of some sort. A normal worker likely still wouldn't shove their hand into a spinning fan.

[@matthewweaver1123]

I just strapped one of these to the top of a parker 620 that had its internal fan quit. Easier than ripping the drive apart.

[@timothyvertin4121]

You took my comment!! We had fans like these in VFD cabinet for a Toshiba drive cabinet. Power plant running 480VAC, 400 HP motors!

[@El_Chompo]

This reminds me of my first custom PC build around 2002. I had no idea at the time that good cooling meant loud. I ended up buying the highest flowing and also loudest 80mm and 120mm fans you could get, man that was kind of a nightmare but I ended up taming it with a rheostat and toggle switch. Man we've come a long way since then. Automatic fan speed based on temperature is such a blessing.

[@Blockistium]

I think Alex might be one of if not my favorite co-hosts, I can't explain it, he's so chill but unhinged at the same time.

[@meekrab9027]

His delivery of the "well, no one else is really trying" (to kill Linus) nearly slayed me.

[@NeoGaymer]

You just described a sociopath 😂😂😂😂

[@alanwatts8239]

I'd have him over Linus any day.

[@jessietheandroid]

When I was a kid, my dad brought home a hydraulics cooling fan from work that he (as an electrician) hooked up to a mains power plug. This was ~2003, and I used it to keep my Intel P4 and Radeon 9800 pro cool in hot midwestern summers. It was genuinely a terrifying fan, but moved a ludicrous amount of air. This was a nostalgia trip more than anything for me!

[@jackinthebox301]

My dad was IT for Unisys for decades and when they started downsizing in the mid 2000's he grabbed a couple giant server ducted fan units. We used them like box fans in the house for years lol. They were crazy strong for how small they were. edit: they weren't server rack fans they were the room fans used for ventilation.

[@MrGothicruler666]

When I was, a young boy, my father, brought home a hydraulics cooling fan

[@jackinthebox301]

@@MrGothicruler666 lol took me a sec to get the Black Parade reference.

[@alikos4528]

Alex is my favourite out of all, the engineering combined with comedy is golden

[@jasonr9157]

alex is the most english in his mannerisms, humour and sarcasm

[@kiverix]

4:06 "this 10 geometre" You need to find out who makes subtitles for the videos lmao

[@notsure1274]

I just noticed this looking at the subtitles 😂

[@wrenched]

Hello Linus, these types of fans are also commonly used onboard military ships for cooling different types of antennas and some radar equipment.

[@kurvin2719]

Linus is just doing side quests at this point, and I love it.

[@HungryPhish]

This is one of my favorite videos LTT has released in recent memory. I love the channel and watch them all. This is just a tier.

[@bones8431]

4:33 You can tell Linus wasn't there for Tynan's Intel Tech Upgrade since he's asking Tynan for safety advice.

[@Janatis]

I work as a engineer in industrial applications and we use alot of these (or atleast very similar, not sure about brand but the wattage is on similar) for cooling of electrical cabinets. At my current workplace we have a big row of cabinets filled with frequency converters so one wall filled with these type of fans to keep everything cooled. We use similar fans but at lower wattage for all our electrical cabinets to keep everything a ideal temperatures. I have also seen fans like these being used for fume extraction in industrial machines.

[@cheeseisgreat24]

I absolutely love the episodes with Alex and janky applications for incredibly serious hardware. As for applications for these kinds of fans, at my work we use ones like them for either when you need to move a lot of air from or to a large space, or a lot of heat from a small space but only have a small orifice to do it through. We one-time had a deployment where a business’s server room was a literal old closet space, not even big enough to put in a portable A/C unit, but the racks they had generated nearly 2 kW of heat at full bore. We installed some ductwork and a fan not unlike this one to dump the heat outside in the summer and a diverter to recycle it inside in the winter.

[@Algernon7]

How was the sound? No one complained about a jet taking off in the ceiling? lol

[@rui518]

@@Algernon7 if it is a industrial setting this would be nothing...

[@cheeseisgreat24]

@@Algernon7 It was mounted somewhere well dampened and was also a slightly quieter model than this jet boy.

[@Drunken_Hamster]

17:59 every 3dp is a double of pressure. For a doubling of volume as far as perception goes, you need 10db. Also, your eardrum is differentially sensitive to different frequencies. What could cause instant permanent damage at 1000hz(our most sensitive area) could be listened to for hours at a time at 30hz.

[@singleskater89]

Just as it takes the double amount of input power every time you increase the volume with 3db.

[@Rizzyfella18]

not really doubling as far as our perception goes. The entire reason decibels are logarithmic is because we perceive volume non linearly

[@MathiasWesterlund]

Air circulation for in row server room cooling. You have these from floor to the top of the cooler which is basically 2 meters high, It is then essentially just chiller fins connected to central heat exchangers and you push the air through the chiller with these.. It is incredibly loud with about 10-15 of these but it sure does push that air :D

[@Ninjapro4113]

In regards to what these are used for: my father works in telecommunications down here in the states and he says these are found all over the place. Mostly for outdoor rad equipment that has the sun beating down on it at all times.

[@yoyobah1862]

Once Labs is up in running I expect to see a hover-case using these fans.

[@jakegibson8779]

14:14 There are also used for Cooling VFD and PCL since most of the time those panels are in buildings or sheds that do not have AC at all.

[@njc9911]

17:59 A doubling of volume is actually 6dB. A doubling of power to a transducer is an increase of 3dB

[@cattunger]

Alex gotta be one of my favorite LTT members hands down.

[@ArniesTech]

Beides Anthony yes, I am with you here 💪

[@Funlu]

@@ArniesTech where is anthony

[@kataseiko]

If he starts opening his mouth to talk, he'll almost pass Anthony. If they can find Anthony, that is..

[@0nigami]

naw that's gotta be dennis

[@DarcMagikian]

@@0nigami based, dennis is best

[@n3ttx580]

We used fans similar to these (huge amount of airflow) to cool few kAV worth of transformers enclosed in a rack cabinet. They had separate fuses, usually two of them (for redundancy, each on one side) and were controlled by PLC which got temperature data from a temp probe thermal epoxied to the transformer's core. Funny side note, when the fan kicked in, the efficiency of the transformer increased, even if it wasn't running super hot.

[@PerJonsson.]

I bet this would solve the 4090’s power cable melting issue

[@davidgarris7467]

So would properly attaching the cable...

[@PerJonsson.]

@@davidgarris7467 flex tape m8

[@XY-vf9mu]

no... thermal resistance

[@lillebrorsanvincent2017]

You are Scandinavian, I feel it. Sweden?

[@xPandamon]

@@davidgarris7467 Even better, not designing it like utter shit so you KNOW it's plugged in properly

[@Airbus-OSUMB]

For a comparison, the CFM56 engine installed on the Boeing 737 has an RPM (N1) OF 3,200, AND can reach as high as 13,000 RPM. The V25000 engines on the Airbus A320 family of aircrafts has an N1 speed of 3,500 RPM, AND can reach as high as 11,000 RPM.

[@birbo5603]

I think they should come out with an RGB version of this. Then they’d really be tapping into the gamer market segment.

[@PrograError]

but they'd need RGB hearing protection...

[@birbo5603]

@@PrograError another opportunity for accessories right there!

[@You-gk1el]

Actually have two of these, I work construction and we did a demo job at a cat food plant and they had these over a conveyer belt that cooled these labels/ heat shrink so they would drop on a bag go thru a heated chamber and then into the fan chamber and it would cool them down to handling temp so they wouldn’t stick together they have some force but mine are 110v and I planned on running them on a radiator in another room just for shits and giggles they are awesome tho

[@kthen5951]

This makes me wonder if air-cooling could shove so much air that the friction of the air would actually produce heat instead of cooling

[@Toastmaster_5000]

@@YAAMW Sure it's possible - that's why meteors burn up in the atmosphere.

[@RashidTak]

@@Toastmaster_5000 incorrect, meteors burn due to compression of air column ahead of them. Not unlike how a bicycle pump heats up

[@rainbowhyena1354]

Impossible. Supersonic propellers are extremely inefficient. And at subsonic speeds there is no significant heating. Supersonic wind tunnels are made by pumping compressed air into huge tanks and releasing it in few seconds. However, it is possible to solve the problem by connecting several fans as compressor stages and get high speed by releasing compressed air. This is how jet engines with an axial compressor work. Although without afterburner they limited at about Mach 1.5

[@thegingineer0]

To produce heat you'd have to compress the air, not just move it. If you have something going supersonic, like the comment talking about meteors, you have something moving so fast the air can't get out of the way, so it compresses. Compression's also how diesel engines work, more or less. The speed of the air isn't what produces the heat, it's not friction, it's the compression. Haven't done thermodynamics in a while, but I believe it's the Ideal Gas Law that you could look at for more information.

[@Ferrari255GTO]

@@thegingineer0 compression is also why gas has different octane values and why it used to have lead on it.

[@lundsweden]

Time to bolt on my car's dual fan radiator cooler to my rig!

[@dammdaniel9953]

I love episodes when Alex pops in videos he's the calm and smart man regarding his sketchy projects.

[@hotgarbagellc]

Hey man, clam down.

[@dammdaniel9953]

Sorry thy I by mistakenly have offended all the English professor's around the world and now I shall face the critisism from each Oxford English professor's thy please forgive me for my mistake and shall I not repeat it .

[@hotgarbagellc]

well, now my joke isn't funny.

[@lol_vevo]

This now is Alex's cooling channel and I'm all here for it

[@ve9jmc]

Fans like that would also be used in Broadcast transmitters to keep the power amplifier modules cool.

[@avocares]

14:35 They are used in large variable frequency drives to cool the heatsink for the IGBTs. I have 3 (though not Delta branded) from a scrapped WEG 250kw drive. Mine need at least 40v to spin up and I have not come up with a legitimate use for them yet, just fun to have.

[@tincoandringa4630]

I used 12KRPM Delta fans zip tied to noctua coolers to air cool a bunch of rack mounted Threadripper 3970X's. Seeing it light up all 32 cores on 4ghz was epic. Those fans also didn't come with connectors, but they weren't really expensive (compared to the threadrippers on their $800 motherboards..).

[@fakjbf3129]

Another thing to realize is that RPMs are not a perfect measurement of speed, you also need to look at how long the fins are. Doubling the length of the fin means that the tip of the fin is also traveling twice as fast at the same RPM. And doubling the length will also approximately double the weight. Force is equal to mass times acceleration, so by doubling both the speed and weight you are quadrupling the kinetic energy of the fan.

[@--_DJ_--]

Did you mean to say measurement of speed or force? RPMs are a pretty good way of measuring rotational speed.

[@Ravenousjoe]

RPM is rpm, nothing more. They don't measure the speed of the fan by it's tip speed, that would just be ridiculous and convuluted.

[@fakjbf3129]

@@--_DJ_-- They are a good way of measuring rotational speed, but not linear speed. For example a windmill might spin at something like 10-20 RPM which sounds fairly slow, but the tips of the blades will be traveling at over 100 mph due to how long they are.

[@fakjbf3129]

@@Ravenousjoe But if you want to talk about how much inertia a fan blade has (which they did briefly), you can’t rely on RPMs alone. As I said doubling the fin length doubles the linear speed even if you keep the RPMs equal, and that doubling of linear speed is what actually matters in the calculation.

[@jayleno2192]

Kinetic energy is 1/2 mV^2 so doubling both the mass and velocity is 8 times the kinetic energy.

[@pleappleappleap]

I've used fans of this size for cooling PLC cabinets in industrial settings. It's in a manufacturing factory core area that usually has nobody working in it.

[@71970eli]

came here to say the same thing

[@0326Hambone]

Yup, came here to say something similar. CNC machines i've worked on use similar fans on the electrical cabinets.

[@avisions]

I’m assuming hearing protection areas?

[@71970eli]

@@avisions there noisy but you wouldn't need hearing protection, especially when they're in plc cabinets

[@pleappleappleap]

@@avisions Definitely yes.

[@chuckholmes2075]

yes they use similar fans for data centers. we've got 120 volt fans but they don't move that much air or spin that fast. I've got 136 servers in 24 racks and each rack has 4 of these fans on the top and back. I don't remember the brand name but they're solid and we've not replaced one yet.

[@kuhrd]

Those big Delta fans are pretty common in outdoor racks for network gear or in wiring closets where you need the equipment to stay cool even if the roomor rack has no AC and is cooled by drawing in filtered outdoor air.

[@steelepowell]

This is my favorite video you guys have made in a while. Not to say the others aren’t good but this was hysterical Alex is awesome

[@apocling]

Hey Linus, I have seen these used. We used it for a top exhaust in a support cabinet that housed the power,cooling and, 3-4 server racks for a SOC tester.

[@GearSounds]

This video was stupid in the best way. This is why we love you Linus. You greenlight videos like this. This was pure fun.

[@denvera1g1]

10:03 If it hurts, your pressuire is too high, above 30PSI you risk injecting air bubbles into the blood stream which can effectively cause a stroke or blood clot

[@rfitzgerald2004]

These fans would be used for enclosure cooling. I work in telecoms, and we have metal street cabinets containing fiber plant equipment that use similar fans to exhaust the hot ambient air inside the cabinet

[@Zag328]

Used to manage a warehouse for a telecom company and we would receive these on the decom cabinets/superframes all the time, have one as my bedside for when it's extremely hot.

[@rfmerrill]

10:55 the main concern with overspinning fans is that computer fans aren't exactly built to take abuse, so you can like, shred the bearings and stuff inside the fan and completely destroy it, or fry the fan's internal controller with the EMF from the coils. I wouldn't worry about that EMF going back up the wire to the mainboard because the fans are all electronically commutated and you're going to fry those electronics (probably shorting them out) before they have any chance to somehow make it operate like a real generator. (Most modern small computer fans are single-phase BLDC and use these cheap little chips that integrate the commutation with a hall effect sensor, at least the ones I've opened up).

[@Ray_of_Light62]

48 Volt DC is the standard voltage powering all telephone exchanges. The + is grounded to counteract electrolytic losses in underground cables. Big lead-acid battery banks provide back-up Power to the exchange and all subscribers' lines. These fans are meant to be powered by the main -48 Volt DC power distribution.

[@user9267]

Alex's janky insanity is what I love the most from this channel

[@xPewz]

We need more of it!

[@BBROPHOTO]

I truly cannot get enough of Alex x Linus combo! They’re so great

[@Anonymous-es4jo]

Alex is the new Luke.

[@LaczPro]

Alex, definitely doing his part as the mad scientist of LMG

[@MachtPlays]

Anything spinning above 4000rpm is fast. Turbo Rotary Motors hit 7k-11k, and they sound like actual demons lol.