Would be awesome to see the new first place in an extra high quality resin print...

So....who's calling Tom to license his fan design?

Seeing if the Dragon Wing can be improved just by printing it in SLA would be cool.

The fanfan is such a riot. I haven't laughed that hard over a fan ever.

the song that plays with the slowmo footage of the fans never gets old. what a banger

Tom is a real one. You can’t expect to gain performance without trading off something else (such as noise) that man has the heart of a true engineer

I'm now a big fan of the small fanfan because the creator was able to think outside the box and put the fanfan inside the box. A truely creative way to reinvent the wheel while keeping the wheel exactly the same as before it was reinvented.

I was interested to see how the fans would rank if we were to value FPM and dBA equally instead of only noting dBA and ranking by pure FPM. I realized then that decibels are logarithmic, so I had to convert those values to linear before we could get a proper weighting. Also, the columns won't line up here because we can't use a monospace font in comments. But you can paste it into a text editor if you want that. Anyway, here are those rankings! | Fan | FPM | dBA | dBA linear | FPM/dBA linear | | ---------------- | --- | ---- | ---------- | -------------- | | Multi Stage | 268 | 40 | 101.59 | 2.64 | | Turbo Pump | 405 | 43.6 | 153.99 | 2.63 | | A12x25 | 495 | 46 | 203.19 | 2.44 | | Angel | 485 | 47.3 | 236.11 | 2.05 | | 92120 | 464 | 47.5 | 241.63 | 1.92 | | Simple 13 | 479 | 48.1 | 258.97 | 1.85 | | Gear Ratio | 482 | 48.3 | 265.03 | 1.82 | | Variable | 430 | 47.4 | 238.86 | 1.80 | | Hollowman | 435 | 48.5 | 271.22 | 1.60 | | Radish | 459 | 49.5 | 304.44 | 1.51 | | Warhead | 454 | 49.5 | 304.44 | 1.49 | | Tangent | 459 | 49.6 | 307.97 | 1.49 | | 17 Blade | 446 | 50 | 322.54 | 1.38 | | Circumventor | 397 | 49 | 287.35 | 1.38 | | Dragon Wing | 528 | 52 | 406.37 | 1.30 | | Cheater | 477 | 51.5 | 383.57 | 1.24 | | Waterfall | 423 | 50.9 | 357.88 | 1.18 | | Double J | 397 | 50.4 | 337.79 | 1.18 | | SkyScoop | 423 | 51 | 362.04 | 1.17 | | Triskelion | 353 | 50.3 | 333.91 | 1.06 | | Involute | 327 | 51 | 362.04 | 0.90 | | Toroidal | 286 | 50 | 322.54 | 0.89 | | XL | 286 | 50 | 322.54 | 0.89 | | Uruguayan | 348 | 52 | 406.37 | 0.86 | | 7 Blade Toroidal | 263 | 50 | 322.54 | 0.82 | | 993 | 435 | 54.5 | 542.45 | 0.80 | | Inverted Sharrow | 337 | 53.6 | 488.88 | 0.69 | | Mobius REV | 273 | 52.6 | 435.54 | 0.63 | | Thoroid | 255 | 52.8 | 445.72 | 0.57 | | A12x25 fanfan | 263 | 54.5 | 542.45 | 0.48 | | Tesla Turbine | 0 | 48 | 256.00 | 0.00 |

Tom’s Dragon Wing fan is insane! Well done, mate!! We need to have a special fan episode where we take all the best parts of of the featured fans over the years, and combine them into an ultimate fankenfan! Imagine the Dragon Wing in a Cheater shroud for instance!

if the guy who made the dragon wing sees this comment... pls, share the stls

Wow, is this the first time the A12 got beaten? I know it's not really a fair fight since Noctua also optimizes for noise, but that's still impressive.

LETS GOOO MY FAV SHOW

Now this is a proper fan showdown episode. In hub designs that attempt competition for the original plus a wild card for the lols.

6db louder though is pretty significant, but it might regain some of that if it was actually made out of Noctua's special material.

The tesla Turbine is missing allot of its key components. like the external shroud that directs the air over the ''blades'' the entire thing is supposed to be enclosed with a valve on one end and it blasting air out of the other.

With the fan fan initially it was "neat, someone's done a full fan and frame...oh...ooooooh"

Tom is like "oh, you want something better, here it is; it took me like 15 minutes to design"

For me, the quietness of Noctua fans is a huge factor in why I use them, not just their performance and reliability.

The Dragon wing is impressive! Nice Job!

And it's a good-looking fan, too. I'd buy it.

I've been a long time fan of the fan showdown. The thing with the a12x25 is its supposed to work in a lot of different configurations. Case fan, heatsink fan, radiator fan. It always does good. Is it the best for anything? not so much but its a great compromise between all kinds of fans. So just pure airflow is not a great way to compare fans. We need to take into account airspeed, CFM, static pressure, lifetime and efficiency.

I love the Dragon Wing's sound! It has a nice harmony to it. 52 dB isn't terrible either.

Not sure the cost of that dissolvable support filament, but there is a cheap and easy way to get easily removable supports for prints: Use a different filament type. If you are printing in PLA, use PETG supports, and if in PETG, use PLA supports. It makes them very easy to remove, and PLA and PETG are usually materials you already have around.

Tom should get a deal with a fan company for their design. That's awesome!

I would really love a sound based series where the dba and potentially a subjective "how nice to listen to" score are the focus. Could make use of the resin printer more and then rank all the fans based on fpm ratio Maybe normalizing with power or so the rpm of each fan is the same?

Tom is the hero we need, not the one we deserve. Keep the fan showdown within the restraints of being used in an actual PC!

would be interesting to see this in a noise normalized comparison with the a12x25, i wonder if it could still win.

I will take increased performance over reduced noise most of the time. That dragon wing looks great.

Honestly the hard angle on the Dragon Wing has a smooth but more steep curve to it than the original Noctua fan blades. But Noctua's new fan blades yet to be released on their updated 140mm design, also, has a steeper curve; it's more abrupt/jagged of a curve though.

*@Major Hardware* 7:44 I'm SO GLAD that you added that acrylic sheet to mount the fans on, otherwise this test would have looked like garbage, but now it's actually great :D

Noctua has a new fan on the way, and during their interview with GN about it and the R&D process that took a few years, they stated that their fan isn't optimized for pushing air through a radiator or for raw CFM. They strive for a sort of hybrid between the two styles. They want their fan to work really good as a case fan, and equally as good as an AIO fan. That being said, BY DESIGN, they are beatable with a more specialized design. It SHOULD be beaten in these tests. However, it SHOULD NOT be beaten across both open air and resistant (through radiator) CFM with a single design. I'd love to see how the Dragon Wing would fair against it for open CFM. It would be really cool to see Noctua beaten at their own thing

Well done Tom. Performance and good looks. Don't get better

1:48 "Yo dawg, I heard you like fans, so I put a fan in your fan so you can fan while you fan!"

i bet that dragon wing design could be further improved, which might help with sound. I'd replace my noctua fans with it in a heartbeat as-is though!

Congrats Tom!👍

Could you 3D print the Noctua fan case with clear plastic? It would be cool to see the fans spinning from the side during the smoke tests.

That printer is no joke!

Wow! I love this series, always somewhat unexpected. :)

Hey! I watched all of the seasons. It would be rather nice to add a noise normalize section in the chart, since many many of want our pc's to perform, but quiet! I think somewhere between 38-45 dba should be fine, I'll let you be the decider on that. I know this is a lot of work, if you should retest a lot of designs, but hey! Free video. Thanks for your hard work!

Nice score Tom! (69.696 CFM)

The fact that the Dragon wing's CFM is 69 repeated is just the best.

Finally someone adding parts that create turbolence at the end of the blade. That's a key to make air turbolent and easiert to push. I think even better would be with an intake that "prepares" the air for the blades. That is, creates turbolent air (with fins) and with curved static blades (like the fan) so that the fan can push as much as possible.

Nice work with 2 color filament!

msi should use the dragon wing in their pc cases! nice.

excellent work tom

we got ourselves a new best, and worst in the same episode! Neat!

I'm sorry excuse me... A fan just DESTROYED the Noctua A12X25 and every other fan on the chart and you just like... End the video on that bombshell? Wow. Back to the studio. 😂

Toms design is my favorite of the designs on display in this video it also had the most pleasant sound.

Wow, way to go Tom! It's nice to see someone doing their homework instead of just submitting garbage. 😂

Can we see a fan speed vs sheer airflow graph for the A12x25 fan versus the Dragon Wing? It'd be interesting to see its possible use in variable fan speed situations!

I needed a good laugh this morning. The Tesla turbine gave it to me🤣🤣🤣

I like how harmonic the Dragon Wing was, legitimately 👀Like, I'd deal with the noise (loudness) if it sounded that good.~ I'm glad the fanfan at least did decently for a good joke fan. Little bugger made me happy.

A12X25 Fanfan was fun. Great job.

WOOT FAN SHOWDOWN! YEAH :D holy crap that bat wing looks awesome! LMAO that fan - fan is hilarious! Skyscoop was a good one! The tesla looks cool but not surprised it didn't do well. WOW someone needs to call Tom and give him some money for that design!

Love the fan show down! Ever thought of remaking the Noctua and using that as a reference? A storebought vs a 3d printed fan might give a significant difference in results. This might be a better reference point as all others are printed as well.

hell yeah good job tom

These fan showdowns are unreasonably funny and enjoyable.

Good Job Tom.

I find this way more interesting than I should.

Absolute powermove from gigachad Tom. Insane!

For a solution that is cheaper than PVA, when the application allows. When printing with PLA use PETG for support material & vice versa. The 2 materials will not bond to eachother at all, so the supports just fall away.

Fan in a fan. „Sometimes my genius,… it’s almost frightening“ - Jeremy Clarkson

Tesla turbine needs a tighter tolerance on its outer cylinder wall to the blades and it should have a ring on the intake side to make it smaller … but also like you said in the intro… it needs 10 times the rpm to be efficient… Also the mini looked like it would work better if it was round and had counter rotating blades on it circumference… love the show brother.. home grown fascination is what I love about KZfaq… do something you love and you will never work a day in your life.

Way to go dragons wing, GG Tom!

I had a nice gigle at the Fan fan and Tesla turbine smoke tests, they really were basically memes, but the second I saw the smoke hit the Dragon wing (07:28) I knew it was going to do well. Just look at how tight that flow is. Sky scoop was a valiant effort.

with great design, come great things! :D

The fans keep getting better, maybe next season we can try some noise normalized testing?🤔

1:45 You know, when you showed it off there, i didnt notice anything about it But this 1:47 really does put it into perspective, LOL

I hope someone does an owl wing for those working with long hours but still produces enough flow to cool even on a hot day

Love the fanfan and the tesla turbine! I think the tesla turbine might actually work, if you put a stationary restricting shroud over the intake. it sucks a little air in through its intake holes, and it projects it outward against the outer rim (pressure on the outer rim) but then it goes equally forward and backward. Just put a lip around the intake side, so the pressure on the outer rim can only go out the exhaust side. I don't have high hopes that it will perform well, but it'll certainly be more than zero!

Would be interesting to have some of the better performing and high selling fans included in the chart as well, just a few of them to see where they slot in among the printed fans.

Tom just walked in and flopped his magnum dong on the table. Bravo, my dude. Great design.

Congratulations Tom.

that's a very nice cfm from the dragon wing

So, if I saw either of those fans in the store, I'd buy that Kenton Baseball T-shirt. Looks good.

i would be verry interested in seeing how the air moves trough a radiator/aircooler. That way you can see if it has some actual air pressure or takes the fastest way out and slows down. And you should scale down the Dragon Wing till it hits the same noise levels and then compare. Then you can see if it actually is better on simmilar noise levels and add the pressure test.

My dad just got an X1 Carbon. Such a fantastic machine if I do say so myself!

this dude has essentially made a game show

LOL.. I liked the fan in fan one! You could do a whole series of silly fans (like a middle finger fan.. or an eyeball fan.. etc)

The Dragon wing is kind of cool but sadly you won't know that once it's spinning. Also there are obviously more dimensions to fan design than cfm/rpm Even noise isn't just noise as there are types of noise that are perceived more quietly. A low frequency hum can be the same dB as a high-mid squeal but the hum will sound quieter. And if both are at low volume to begin with, the difference will be even greater. So it's a doubly good idea to try and get your fan to emit only low frequencies.

I like how the attack angle of the middle more aggressive than the tips, creating faster flow in the center making outersides not only sucking air from front but sides as well. ( all fans does this but I think in this model this is makes the fan act like a bigger diameter fan )

I thought fanfan was bad, then turbine went...ouch. Another great episode as always!

Solidworks FTW ❤

The Dragon Wing's CFM... Nice

The dragon wing reminds me of the old bat wing fan I had a few years back. Also wonder how well the finalists fans will do in resin.

I would buy the dragon wing. Noctua has the advantage of an well known reputation but better preference would peak my interest enough to at least give it a try and it also looks good 👍.

While I enjoy the creative and over the top big designs, I find the ones that stick within stock fan dimensions much more interesting.

Noctua is still unbeaten, imo. It's not enough to push more air through, if the acoustics get worse. When someone comes with a fan which is quieter or as quiet as Noctua and still within that 120x120x25mm envelope, I'm sold.

I'll bet that Tom's Dragon Wing would perform even better made with a mould press. Those jagged edges of 3D printing puts a huge drag on the airflow.

I'd definitely get the dragon wing

I love the fanfan.. I need those for my PC

I feel like the fan fan would be really fun to use in a much larger fan. Like a 200mm or something, so that the hub isn't taking up half the blade area

We need to revisit the Tesla turbine and add a front shroud with an inlet that restricts the airflow to those inlet vents, and redesign the outlet stator to better redirect the edge flow out the back. But the drive motor is the limiting factor. I've seen a Tesla turbine used as a pump heave gallons of water, but it was hooked to a big 1HP DC motor.

Now take the dragon wing, and smooth it out, see if smooth is better or worse. This seems to have a large outside and shrinking towards the center intake with a full flat output. and the be-quiet wavy design.

props for people using modeling software as cad software. i do that, 3dsmax 2014 is my cad software. geometry is geometry. geometry + printer = thing.

My company bid on building Kenton's new Middle School/High School today. Weird coincidence!

Dragon fan is impressive for fitting completely in the housing.

I'd really like to see the fans set to a normalized 40db for the airflow test. Testing airflow at max rpm doesn't tell us much, since most people would be irritated by a nearly 60db fan.

Gonna need to put that Tesla turbine on a drone motor! And/or a fair bit of a redesign.

im waiting for the solid state fan show down :) they are cool if you ever look into them