If you're willing to deal with disturbing and resealing the roof, the MaxxAir would 100% be a better choice for both airflow and noise levels. I wasn't feeling ambitious enough to go there myself, and we have roof air and always camp where shore power exists, so worst case, we have to fire that up. I view the Vortex II as an acceptable compromise in exchange for not having to deal with weatherproofing. It's still a substantial improvement over the comically tiny fan the trailer came with. Laughably, we went to an RV show last weekend and there's still lots of 2023 models coming with that same useless fan! Thank you for the feedback, and best of luck with your upgrade! I fully expect that you'll be very happy with the MaxxAir.

Nope, you are 100% right. I'd hoped it might, but if anything, it's louder now. Thankfully for us, it's in our bathroom, far enough from our bed that it's not objectionable unless it's on high speed, which we seldom use. Still an improvement over the useless stock fan. If I weren't hesitant to disturb the roof seal, I'd definitely have spent more and bought a Fantastic Fan or some other higher quality model.

It's unfortunate that the Heng's fan died on you, and I'm not surprised that a replacement motor costs almost as much as the whole thing. I'm actually amazed that you were able to find one at all. So far, so good for ours. I'd hoped that it might become slightly quieter as it wore in, but that has not proven to be the case. At least in our trailer its location in our bathroom puts it far enough from our bed that it's not all that noticeable on low speed. As you noted, it does do the job. If this one were to die, I think I'd probably bite the bullet and put in a complete vent and fan from Maxxair or Fantastic Fans, but I'm satisfied with the Heng's and not having to disturb my roof seal to get that airflow improvement. Thank you for commenting!

@@2BlackStripes happy to hear yours is holding up. I replaced ours with a Fan tactic. It wasn’t as difficult as expected to remove the old cover. Installing the new one pretty straight forward, though be careful to center so the inside trim can be fitted and new wiring isn’t in the way. Ask how I know… The new fan is much quieter. We have Max air covers. It does not fit well over the Fan tactic fan for two reasons. It’s not tall enough to open the fan fully and the molded pins on the housing to mount a Fan tactic cover are in the way for using the Max air cover. I may use my Dremel saw to trim them off rather than put out $90 for the Fan tactic cover. TBD.

Glad the video was of some use. Yes, it's a bit of a trade-off with the Vortex II in that it does perfectly fit the standard 14" vent aperture without substantial modification (at least in our trailer, and I suspect it would be the same in most as the RV manufacturers all seem to use the same suppliers...), but it is noisier and less effective than a full vent replacement could be. Like yourself, I viewed not having to disturb my leak-free roof as more important, and frankly, the Vortex II is effective enough that I'm satisfied with the choice. If it eventually dies, I may reevalute that, but for now it does the job - fortunately, without drawing in waste tank odours in our TT.

The Vortex drop-ins are both intended for standard 14"x14" vents, which are really common in trailers and RVs. You can steal 12 volt power from a nearby light, if you have one. Not sure if you'd be able to modify it in some way for your application, but I'd have to guess that it'd be difficult given the size of the Vortex's fan and the way it's mounted. What might work better for you if you can't find something more suitable is a pair of computer cooling fans - they are also 12 volt, and I've seen others on KZfaq use them in RV's before. Likely won't move a ton of air, but they'll certainly be better than no fan at all! Good luck!

16 x 8 sounds like a refrigerator vent. These are intended to vent the actual RV cabin.

Haven't had any visible issues with insects finding those. To be honest, I've never seen a bug even on the main part of the screen. Perhaps between the roof-top location of the vent and the vent cap we have, they just don't find it in any numbers.

2016, but yes, Viking 17FQ - good eye! If you have a 2017, you might like my other video about some of the little changes and upgrades we've made to ours. Have a look and see what you think!

Provided that a) you can tap into that 12 volt source, and b) that 12V source has enough capacity to run a fan, you should be fine.

@@2BlackStripes thanks for the reply. I'm going to give it a shot.