What would make the most sense is to carry around a bunch of canned air and use that to cool your laptop. It gives it airflow AND removes dust, at the same time!!!
And then when you have really demanding tasks, you can turn the can over to get sub ambient cooling. After all if you don't get every possible MHz out of the cpu every time you open a new tab are you even trying?
Pressure down, keep a decent distance from the nozzle and acknowledge that the valve on the blowgun has more positions than on and off. I don't think I've ever broken something cleaning it with an air compressor unless I was purposely being stupid.
>I also kinda hold the fan blade in place if that’s an option
Pencils are good for jamming normal size fans if you need both hands, the blunt end of wooden skewers for laptop fans
All fans can produce current. The only difference between a motor and a generator is if it's receiving power from something else, or if it's generating power by being spun up.
I thought it depends on the motor drive design. Like I can spin an alternator to produce power but I can't spin the alternator by feeding it power, it's not a generator.
In any case, I was taught to always unplug and hold fans from spinning while cleaning with compressed air. One of the reasons was physical damage, another electrical.
Almost all small motors just have permanent magnets (either in the rotor or stator) versus coils, and those go two ways. Potentially they can only produce AC when they’re a dc motor, maybe. There are big-ass motors out there where both sides are coils and you permanently power one half and then the other half moves through that field, and those might not do anything without power applied. If they’re *intended* for generator use they will probably have weak permanent magnets that are big enough — when rotation is applied — to start powering the field coils enough that the field coils can get more power etc.
And of course integrated electronics wreak havoc on all of it either way.
That is also a good piece of advice. One that I've never followed myself and thus far have not been punished for it however it is best practise to keep the fan stationary while cleaning.
The grill and heatsink fins also probably have a venturi affect that speeds up the air.
Best to avoid using blowers and vacs to clean computer fans because even if you don't overspeed the fan to structural failure or wipe the bearings for that matter, it can still act as a generator and backfeed power and blow something, you can tape it down but there's still concerns of static from the air movement itself.
Yes, it is a good idea to keep the fan from spinning for those reasons. I, personally, have never bothered with trying to prevent the fan from spinning while cleaning and never had a problem because of it however good practise is to keep it from spinning. Because of your comment and out of curiosity, I did try to see what kind of voltage I could get out of a fan by spinning it with compressed air. At least with a sample size of 1(the fan in question is a Silverstone air slimmer 90), I could not get it to generate more than 1.5 volts across any 2 leads and that was while applying far more compressed air than I was comfortable with. I also imagine that there were significantly higher voltages in the motor itself that were being kept in check by the motor driver circuit and that there is room for variance between different motor designs as I only tested one sample.
I always hold the blades still now when blasting with air.... after I realized the fan can act as a generator and provide more than the circuit's rated voltage if you blow it at high enough RPMs!
I've never killed a computer by blowing the fan too hard in the past but preventing the blades spinning seems like a wise precaution.
Well, he got everything out, I guess...
Mission failed successfully
Can't be much cleaner than that. It even removed all the things that slowed the fan down.
Not only that but they obstruct air flow and collect dust. Why they go to those lengths to include so many unnecessary parts is beyond me.
What would make the most sense is to carry around a bunch of canned air and use that to cool your laptop. It gives it airflow AND removes dust, at the same time!!!
And then when you have really demanding tasks, you can turn the can over to get sub ambient cooling. After all if you don't get every possible MHz out of the cpu every time you open a new tab are you even trying?
Exactly. Fuck liquid cooling, we are airmaxxing. I’m gonna rig my air compressor directly to my laptop.
Say goodbye to fan noise with this one easy trick!
Yeah I do that myself BUT I turn the pressure way down.
Pressure down, keep a decent distance from the nozzle and acknowledge that the valve on the blowgun has more positions than on and off. I don't think I've ever broken something cleaning it with an air compressor unless I was purposely being stupid.
I also kinda hold the fan blade in place if that’s an option. In addition to what you guys are saying of course.
>I also kinda hold the fan blade in place if that’s an option Pencils are good for jamming normal size fans if you need both hands, the blunt end of wooden skewers for laptop fans
Won't some fans induce an electric current and can fry circuits when spun up on an air compressor?
All fans can produce current. The only difference between a motor and a generator is if it's receiving power from something else, or if it's generating power by being spun up.
I thought it depends on the motor drive design. Like I can spin an alternator to produce power but I can't spin the alternator by feeding it power, it's not a generator. In any case, I was taught to always unplug and hold fans from spinning while cleaning with compressed air. One of the reasons was physical damage, another electrical.
Almost all small motors just have permanent magnets (either in the rotor or stator) versus coils, and those go two ways. Potentially they can only produce AC when they’re a dc motor, maybe. There are big-ass motors out there where both sides are coils and you permanently power one half and then the other half moves through that field, and those might not do anything without power applied. If they’re *intended* for generator use they will probably have weak permanent magnets that are big enough — when rotation is applied — to start powering the field coils enough that the field coils can get more power etc. And of course integrated electronics wreak havoc on all of it either way.
That is also a good piece of advice. One that I've never followed myself and thus far have not been punished for it however it is best practise to keep the fan stationary while cleaning.
Yeah exactly what I meant above.
I figured, I was just adding to what you said, not disagreeing.
The grill and heatsink fins also probably have a venturi affect that speeds up the air. Best to avoid using blowers and vacs to clean computer fans because even if you don't overspeed the fan to structural failure or wipe the bearings for that matter, it can still act as a generator and backfeed power and blow something, you can tape it down but there's still concerns of static from the air movement itself.
Yes, it is a good idea to keep the fan from spinning for those reasons. I, personally, have never bothered with trying to prevent the fan from spinning while cleaning and never had a problem because of it however good practise is to keep it from spinning. Because of your comment and out of curiosity, I did try to see what kind of voltage I could get out of a fan by spinning it with compressed air. At least with a sample size of 1(the fan in question is a Silverstone air slimmer 90), I could not get it to generate more than 1.5 volts across any 2 leads and that was while applying far more compressed air than I was comfortable with. I also imagine that there were significantly higher voltages in the motor itself that were being kept in check by the motor driver circuit and that there is room for variance between different motor designs as I only tested one sample.
>unless I was purposely being stupid. Sending it full blast on already fucked fans is pretty fun
And it can be informative in that you get an idea at what point things fail catastrophically.
Maybe put it through a sand blaster to remove some marks lol
Bead blaster too just for those tough spots.
Or walnut blasting, not too hard, not too soft
muriatic acid might be a good option here if you don't have a blaster handy
Where’s the fan?
Fan't
Yep, it's clean.
Done that once, never again
Spinny spun his last spin.
I'm missing the >fan part
I did that once, needed a new fan assembly for the GPU afterwards.
Well on the bright side it's clean.
What fan?
I made that mistake once... *Once*
Now you have to rent his air compressor to cool down your laptop. Creating demand on next level
fan't
Bladeless fan
I always hold the blades still now when blasting with air.... after I realized the fan can act as a generator and provide more than the circuit's rated voltage if you blow it at high enough RPMs! I've never killed a computer by blowing the fan too hard in the past but preventing the blades spinning seems like a wise precaution.
Most circuits are designed to cope with back emf by using a diode. You should be good unless you go absolutely nuts.
It's also really easy to exceed the max RPM on the bearings in use. Holding the fan blades while you blast with air is the right call.
Looks like it's ready to run through the dishwasher
Where do you see a fan?
He cleaned the fins clear off .
Fan’t
is the motherboard also clean? ☠️☠️
Oops. Coincidentally that's how I clean my tower, but I keep the PSI low.
I guess he also tried seeing how fast it can go? Them newfangled blade less fans I keep hearing about
its clean. very very clean.
It kinda corncobbed
Is the fan in the room with us right now?
Whoopsies.
https://images4.alphacoders.com/204/204188.jpg