Artlii H3 projector fan replacement for noise reduction

[Nagby]

100€ 720p projector with good brightness but like many projector also has pretty loud fans

The user manual list features, here are some about the cooling :

"Air-proof design and efficient cooling channels can greatly enhance the overall stability and service life"

"Ultra-quiet and dust-proof design that eliminates the need for internal cleaning during it's service life"

"The appearance is beautiful and gorgeous"...it's a black and white box I guess...

 

Curious of what that could be, and maybe looking into swapping the fans to make it quieter in the future, I took it appart.

Here is the airflow inside :

 

 

I don't know if doing that really helps with dust, there is no filter anywhere

It has only been used for a month but I could see some dust mostly in the PSU area, and some spread around the LCD panel and other optical screens

 

would there be a possible fan upgrade with this projector? (without cutting any of the external plastic structure)

[Bombastinator]

Doubtful.  It’s also advertising various dust proofing stuff, and if you went to a different model of fan you could lose that.  It’s not impossible your fan bearing wore out.  Is it that it started quiet and became loud or was it always loud?  If it was always loud you are likely SOL.  Small projectors are just loud.

[TempestCatto]

Measure the fan(s) and see if Noctua sells a replacement. They get pretty small.

If there's no filters, there's no dust proofing - not without making horrible airflow. If you can, I'd suggest buying a fan filter for a pc and cutting it to size and placing it where needed. You'll have to remember to clean it on a regular basis. Cooling causes dust, dust causes heat, heat kills.

 

It's either that or go with a better projector.

[Bombastinator]

2 minutes ago, TempestCatto said:

Measure the fan(s) and see if Noctua sells a replacement. They get pretty small.

If there's no filters, there's no dust proofing - not without making horrible airflow. If you can, I'd suggest buying a fan filter for a pc and cutting it to size and placing it where needed. You'll have to remember to clean it on a regular basis. Cooling causes dust, dust causes heat, heat kills.

 

It's either that or go with a better projector.

Fan measurement was apparently 75x 30mm.  This implies a high speed fan to me.

[Nagby]

it was always like a gaming laptop kind of noise

i think the fans are at ~70% generally, and when turning the projector down they get to 100% for 1 or 2 seconds

 

I wanted to make it quieter half for comfort and half out of curiosity

I guess I could isolate the PSU and LED cooling areas

use a noctua or noiseblocker axial fan

then find a way to have a removable dust filtre in front of added intake holes (I have some HEPA fabric)

I have a dremel and 3D printer so that could be made.

But that would violate the rule I had of not changing any of the outside... well at least I would like to keep it the same size and able to withstand being transported sometimes.

 

If the time and motivation comes maybe that could become a project

[TempestCatto]

2 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Fan measurement was apparently 75x 30mm.  This implies a high speed fan to me.

Same kind of thing in servers and switches. I seem to recall LTT doing a video where they replaced the stock fans in switch with Noctua and it was virtually silent.

[Nagby]

I guess the question now is : is it really usefull to have airflow for the LCD panel?

I don't think the produce heat and I don't see how it can help for dust

is the panel meant to catch the dust that would otherwise be in the LED heatsink?  

the projection would get dimmer and dimmer with time then

[Nagby]

UPDATE :

 

I tryed several things without much luck so far, but still have another idea

 

 

 

first I wanted to replace the larger blower fan cooling the LED heatsink

I wanted to fit a 60mm fan get similar airflow, but I could only fit a 40mm one ( had to remove too much of the structure to fit the 60mm and didn't find any 50mm fan)

obviously the fan wasn't powerfull enough and the heatsink got to ~80°C while it was stable at 50°C with the original fan

 

 

 

then I tryed to put this 40mm fan for the PSU, which should be enough

so here I started making holes to the outside.

then I flipped the larger blower fan to get cool air directly from the outside

and see if the temperature got lower so I could keep this fan but lower it's speed with a DC-DC buck converter

and here I understood why the original airflow was going trough the LCD panel

after ~3min of powering it up, a black zone started burning from the center and growing out

thankfully powering it down and let it cool and power back up showed that the damage was reversible

so for now I got the fans back to how they were originally where they cool down sufficiently the LED, PSU and LCD panel

 

 

 

So i think I can't have both a quieter projector and nothing added sticking out of it

because it's still much too loud, I prefer to sacrifice the second part

so I'm looking to replace the original LED heatsink with an 80mm tower cooler (continuing in a second post to be able to upload more images)

[Nagby]

I found this cheap cooler https://fr.aliexpress.com/item/4000460907686.html?spm=a2g0o.detail.1000014.9.7e622b959sllSZ

which should fit pretty nicely and could keep the LED cool enough with the fan at around half it's max speed

 

that would replace the larger blower fan, and to replace the smaller one which is probably mostly cooling the LCD panel rather than the PSU

I would place the 40mm fan I used earlier where the larger blower was to intake from the outside front of the projector to exhaust through the LCD panel

then some air would get around the PSU the exit from the original intake openning

kind of like that but I thought I had an 80mm fan in this pic while it was a 70mm (stock AMD bulldozer cooler fan), so the scale would be a bit different

 

I could only find a 92mm fan with 80mm mounting holes to get an idea of the tower cooler size and if it would be possible to fit it

first, the LED is 31x34mm and the tower cooler base 35x35 so that's perfect

then it is 60mm thick with a 25mm fan, so 35mm heatsink aligned with the base

so it sticks out 17.5mm for the center of the LED one way, and 42.5mm the other way

and thats almost the distance between the center of the LED and the plugs clearance area on way, and the projector's fett the other way, nice

finally, the base of the LED is 20mm away from the side of the projector

the tower being 113mm high would stick out 10cm from the projector which is 22cm wide so it would get to 32cm

adding 30% in this dimension and moving it's center of gravity by ~5cm which should be manageable

those metal brackets could be used to hold more securely the tower the the case with aluminium or wood plates on the sides.

[Nagby]

Back after a long while because covid made the delivery of the cooler way longer than expected.

 

The result for now is a tower cooler sticking from the side and the original PSU/LCD fan staying in place but with a DC buck to reduce it's speed

And it is now as noisy as my laptop, so not a problem anymore

the projector is upside down not for the fan but to have the lens place just right for the wall in front, but it also help for the fan I guess

 

I was lucky that the base of the tower cooler fit just right (after sanding a bit of the cone directling the light from the LED) so it is held in place securely and not much sitcks out of the enclosure.

 

I also added filters to the intake for dust and to the exhaust for light leakage

But sometimes after several hours on a yellow spot start to appear on the LCD, which can be metigated by openning a tiny door there is under the LCD for more airflow (but also more light leakage)

 

So i might re-open the projector to remove the filters and/or increase the fan speed

[sinxa]

Really interesting hack for Chinese cheap projectors.

Google brought me here since I feel that they have loud noisy fan from the factory.

Yes, the internal design is completely match the most $100 projectors.

They are 2 fans. The 1st get the air intake from the rear part of the body near the PSU area.

And then blow the air through LCD panels in order to keep them cool and prevent "blacking" on the image production.

The LCD it self doesn't produce any heat, but it receive the heat from the LED chip, that why we need the 1st fan.

While the 2nd fan receive the air from the LCD and blow it out through LED's heatsink. And I guess this 2nd fan is twice power of the 1st one.

 

For few days I am thinking about replacing the LED's heatsink by the water cooling system like this picture.

And as long as  my experience, water cooling really helps a lot and ease the need of air flow, so there would be decreased noise level as we don't need FAN any more.

Of course there will be water pump noise but not as bad as 50mm fan.

And if that is not enough, I am pretty sure 120mm radiator will help much.

[Bombastinator]

What happened to those fittings?  The surface is very strange.