Tiny (cooling) Fans

[Fleder]

I remembered that a few weeks ago, some users were on the hunt for small fans for their builds.
I found some really small ones, although you have to order 50.



- 9x9x3mm
- 12x12x3mm
- 15x15x3mm
- 17x17x3mm


Hope those are useful for you guys.

[kite]

I have in my possession the:

15mm
17mm
30mm

When running at 2.5v they are all quiet, anything lower than 2v and they emit a loud BUZZ sound.. it's strange that going above 2v makes them quieter! Pi heatsinks are typically ~15mm square, the advantage of these fans is that they are lateral 'blowers' so they are very flat.. the 15mm seems perfect, the 17mm offers more airflow, the 30mm has the most airflow and is the quietest (less RPM of fan). The 30mm will fit flat on the Pi3 if you remove the camera connector from the board. I haven't decided on the best one to use yet, ideally the 30mm as it is quieter, and the cheapest of the lot I found!

I did order them in single quantities however they weren't cheap.. i'm talking about £12 for a fan! Even a very small airflow (forced cooling) will help cool a Pi3 to a stable temp.. from my experience, the 20mm 'axial' (normal looking) fans are terrible when small, these blowers at 2.5v you can clearly feel the airflow on your finger (technical I know).. What I could do is run a benchmark with them and report temps of a Pi3 running a large problem or something.. It's on my todo list but I can take a video etc to hear the noise etc.. they use a TINY amount of current, around 30ma which is the same as a few LEDs so really not a power hog!

[joe7dust]

Nice. Loving it, these things are so cute! Does this mean we can start overclocking our pi zeros to pi3 speed now?! (without quadcore only single of course, but I think pi3 runs at 1.2ghz?)

[otaola.franc]

it is a shame you need to buy so much quantity.... i want one or maybe two but not 50.... U.U i would like to pay a little more if i could buy one .... u.u

[kite]

When my Super AIO is ready, I will be doing an order of these fans so I'll share a link for you guys to buy! (they don't have to come with my board)

[otaola.franc]

When my Super AIO is ready, I will be doing an order of these fans so I'll share a link for you guys to buy! (they don't have to come with my board)

cool idea! i would like it to buy it at the same time that the board so it is only one shipment XD in any case
thanks!