How to RUIN a really nice case fan

[ratdude747]

I managed to destroy a brand new Arctic F12 CO (120mm PWM 2BB fan by arctic)... and draw blood at the same time!

What happened was I was testing a pair that was to go in a supermicro case (to replace the single 120mm PWM san ace) at full speed... and somehow my left pinky got in the blade. BAM! Ouch! The tip of the blade impaled the finger and drew some blood... and the blade was almost entirely cracked off the hub.

I tried to glue it back together, but I can't get the blade to set in position... so to the scrap pile goes a brand new fan

Lesson: be careful around fans w/o wire grates!

[cheapie]

Re: How to RUIN a really nice case fan

I heard about somebody that was playing with some 240CFM Delta fan at full speed, and it sliced a piece of skin off of their finger and blew the blood onto the wall.

[c_hegge]

Re: How to RUIN a really nice case fan

What happened was I was testing a pair that was to go in a supermicro case (to replace the single 120mm PWM san ace) at full speed... and somehow my left pinky got in the blade. BAM! Ouch! The tip of the blade impaled the finger and drew some blood... and the blade was almost entirely cracked off the hub.

You must have tougher fingers than me. The last few times I've got my fingers into a fan, the blades didn't get damaged, but it bit into my finger hard - and that was with a small 70mm fan (it was running at about 5000RPM, though).

I heard about somebody that was playing with some 240CFM Delta fan at full speed, and it sliced a piece of skin off of their finger and blew the blood onto the wall.

Ouch! That would really hurt. I still have the two I got for my old load tester. I never power them on without grilles installed - specifically for this reason. I've had one ingest a few sticks and leaves before - which just got turned into sawdust. I'm sure it could easily do a similar thing with my finger.

[ben7]

Re: How to RUIN a really nice case fan

Lol, how on earth would the fan blade(s) break from that? I say cheap plastic/design!

I did get a finger sliced from a fan before, it is this "PFC Select" brand. Amazing fan, it will knock itself over if not supported well enough!


Now, if you havent seen the fans firefighters use to ventilate buildings, you need to see them! Talk about gigantic CFM, and a high power motor ... i bet they'd chop a whole arm off!

[ratdude747]

Re: How to RUIN a really nice case fan

I heard about somebody that was playing with some 240CFM Delta fan at full speed, and it sliced a piece of skin off of their finger and blew the blood onto the wall.

Ouch!

Chegge and Ben7- I think it's the small hub of the fan and the fact I got it by the pointy end of the fan blade that made it crack (leverage). It was running at about the 2200RPM (max rated RPM of the F12).

I did once have the same result with a 3K AMD 940 cooler, but no fan damage. Or worse, a PWM 5K Delta 60mm cpu fan running full blast, also had no damage. both had pointy blade tips. OUCH!

[Topcat]

Re: How to RUIN a really nice case fan

I did similar once when cleaning a really cruddy one with my air compressor. It was spinning really fast from the air flow and I accidentally got the air nozzle into the blades.......every blade sheared off and became a projectile. Fan obviously destroyed.

[lti]

Re: How to RUIN a really nice case fan

I found out that these have sharp blades. I think I might have posted about that before. It took a chunk of skin off, and I only had it running at 9V. It's inside my computer's PSU now where it can't hurt anybody.

[rhomanski]

Re: How to RUIN a really nice case fan

Ouch! I have to be careful of things like that as clumsy as I am. So I always have fan guards on mine. I ordered a pair of 50mm from amazon. The package said Hong Kong and had regular 60mm in it. I had to order from someone else. It would have cost more to send back than they cost in the first place.

[Sweet & Spicy]

Re: How to RUIN a really nice case fan

Ouch! Getting your finger sliced on one of those sounds really bad. Never done it myself. I have twice required stitches for scissor slices before though, and those were moving a lot slower than those fan blades. You all be careful!! I hope the fan wasn't too expensive.

I'm curious as to why RD was up so late/early, but that's not really my business to be poking my nose into.

[ratdude747]

Re: How to RUIN a really nice case fan

I'm curious as to why RD was up so late/early, but that's not really my business to be poking my nose into.

Couldn't sleep. Nothing less, nothing more

[Logistics]

Re: How to RUIN a really nice case fan

I'm gonna go home and wet-sand+polish my fan blades.

[Elysarian]

Re: How to RUIN a really nice case fan

My idiot brother managed something similar (without the bloodshed)...

He was taking pictures of the inside of his "modded" PC when he dropped his camera into the CPU cooler

One fan destroyed, upside is it was only a stock AM3+ cooler & got replaced with an Arctic Cooling A30.

I did ask after the event why he was taking pics with the thing running...

[luke10050]

Re: How to RUIN a really nice case fan

i managed to do something like that yesterday with an air compressor as i was cleaning out a PSU fan, shoved the compressor nozzle a bit too far in and the blade went flying. i was amazed when a bit of loctite 406 instant adhesive solved all my problems and rendered the fan as good as new.

[eccerr0r]

Re: How to RUIN a really nice case fan

I broke my Zalman heatsink with 92mm fan's blades with an air compressor as well, broke two blades off. Hesitant to use glue as it'd upset the balance of the blades. I just ripped the rotor/blades off another (unfortunately, 80mm) fan -- worked well enough.

[momaka]

Re: How to RUIN a really nice case fan

I tried to glue it back together, but I can't get the blade to set in position... so to the scrap pile goes a brand new fan

So just break off the blade, do some cleaning/sanding in the areas that make it no go back in place, and glue the blade back.

[c_hegge]

Re: How to RUIN a really nice case fan

Some fans have 9 blades. On those, you can just snap two other blades off to balance it again

[cheapie]

Re: How to RUIN a really nice case fan

Some fans have 9 blades. On those, you can just snap two other blades off to balance it again

That's what I did with my old OCZ power supply. It had 8 blades on the fan (120mm Globe, for those that care). At this time, the computer was just a pile of parts on the floor. I came into the room one day to find the power supply making a rumbling noise. It turns out that a lamp had fallen off the desk and broke a blade off of the fan. I just broke off the blade across from it and it ran fine.

[ratdude747]

Re: How to RUIN a really nice case fan

So just break off the blade, do some cleaning/sanding in the areas that make it no go back in place, and glue the blade back.

Nah, any removal of material will unbalance it... it was a jagged break. If anything the jaggedness provided a way to align it. Not to mention that smooth sufaces are WORSE for gluing (less surface area, single plane of contact). Even with all that, I couldn't get the blade to stay... maybe super glue gel would have worked. IDK.

Some fans have 9 blades. On those, you can just snap two other blades off to balance it again

It is a 9 blade fan... I thought about that, if anything I'd remove 5 blades and the stub of the broken one to make a 3 blade fan. too bad it wouldn't be high enough RPM for such a layout to be even remotely optimal.