Tales from a Ventilation Lunatic

[sternwake]

The Noctua representative I've corresponded with since the first fan failure got back to me, saying that the warranty is good 6 years from the date of purchase.
, and that he coud send me basically any other fan in their linup as a replacement if I want, since I no longer trust this specific model and they are basically all the same price.

he recommended the industrial IP67 rated fans, but the 3K rpm ones only come in 24 volt models, and I want 3k rpm, not just 1600, and if I have to use a voltage booster, I'd rather use the papst 24v fan with its 282 cfm rating

I asked for the NF-A14 industrialPPC-3000 PWM

https://noctua.at/en/nf-a14-industrialppc-3000-pwm

He indicated they would like both fans back, even the one which has not failed yet, but which still spins up backwards regularly and would replace both. I think modifying my shroud for 2 140Mm fans in place of 120mm fans will leave it too weak, but asked for one 24 volt version with the IP67 rating. So one IP52 rated 3K 140MM rpm fan and one 24v IP67 3kRPM 140mm fan.



Ingress Protection ratings chart/explanation:

http://www.dsmt.com/resources/ip-rating-chart/

The Noctua fans which have failed hae been IP52 rated.

I think the firing up backwards is related to if there is pressure on the blades, like airpressure pushing against them to push them in reverseon start up. i could not get it to fire up backwards with fan shroud removed, but the second I returned it to my window I was able to get it to fire up backwards 6 times out of 10.

I related my suspicion to them of why this behavior occurs, since they said they could not get it to happen regularly in testing, and they still say they have had very few warranty returns, where I have had 3 out of 4 of this specific fan fail, and all of them fire up backwards regularly when mounted on my shroud in my window.