Painting your Air Cooler?

[Guest]

Just now, ArmswieldTheHero said:

Yea so Noctua fixed the problem, painting it wont change anything, it will add less than a gram to the weight which should be so light that it wont add any additional noise or anything to it. and it also wouldnt raise your temps either.

Well, Noctua don't want you to do it. And neither do I.

[ArmswieldTheHero]

Just now, spidsepttk said:

Well, Noctua don't want you to do it. And neither do I.

Well, that's your opinion on the matter.

[Guest]

Just now, ArmswieldTheHero said:

Well, that's your opinion on the matter.

And my opinion is that I want my fans to run at the intended performance.

[ArmswieldTheHero]

Just now, spidsepttk said:

And my opinion is that I want my fans to run at the intended performance.

And my fact is that painting the fans will not impair the performance of the fans.

[WoodenMarker]

39 minutes ago, ArmswieldTheHero said:

And my fact is that painting the fans will not impair the performance of the fans.

Your assertion*

There hasn't been any tests/results of before/after of painting these fans linked in this thread. It's all conjecture until we get that.

[Enderman]

1 hour ago, ArmswieldTheHero said:

And my fact is that painting the fans will not impair the performance of the fans.

Painting fans is usually not a good idea.

It can be done if you use a light paint with airbrush, or plastic dye is even better.

 

Regular can spray paints will not work because

1) it will unbalance the rotor, causing greater wear over time and greater potential for noise/failure

(unless you are some sort of robotic painting machine which can get a perfect uniform thickness of paint on all the surfaces)

 

2) on a good quality fan, the space between the blades and the housing is very small, and the paint thickness could cause that to jam

 

3) the additional mass of the paint will cause "flattening" which again could cause it to jam with the frame

Flattening is a problem that noctua is trying to deal with on their regular fans (prototypes), without any paint, just from the lightweight blades alone.

 

4) air friction isn't really a factor in this case, the air is going too slow to cause any significant drag.

[ArmswieldTheHero]

1 hour ago, Enderman said:

Painting fans is usually not a good idea.

It can be done if you use a light paint with airbrush, or plastic dye is even better.

 

Regular can spray paints will not work because

1) it will unbalance the rotor, causing greater wear over time and greater potential for noise/failure

(unless you are some sort of robotic painting machine which can get a perfect uniform thickness of paint on all the surfaces)

 

2) on a good quality fan, the space between the blades and the housing is very small, and the paint thickness could cause that to jam

 

3) the additional mass of the paint will cause "flattening" which again could cause it to jam with the frame

Flattening is a problem that noctua is trying to deal with on their regular fans (prototypes), without any paint, just from the lightweight blades alone.

 

4) air friction isn't really a factor in this case, the air is going too slow to cause any significant drag.

Thats all true, but I'm assuming that you do it right and not spray paint it. acrylic spray paints can be heavy.

[MattW]

Painting a fan can hurt its performance a little bit mostly by causing more drag and therefor making it work harder to move the same amount of air or move less air for the same power input. But really if your not already running high temps and you keep the paint light and even it shouldn't make a noticeable difference. 

 

As for the heatsink painting it a dark colour can help it cool better. Its well known in the automotive world that a black radiator or intercooler can cool just a bit better then bare metal one in some cases. As for other colors I don't know.

 

All this is assuming the paint is the correct type and applied properly.

[Matacks]

uhhh painting an aircooler seems counter intuitive..  so yea.. dont do it..