Actually, I think you should rather measure current flow instead of RPM, as the actual RPM are more or less steady no matter the load(fans tend to hold a steady RPM and regulate themselves), while the current draw might actually change alot. If you have a higher load and try to maintain the same rpm, you have to put more power into it, so the current rises.
I had the exact same thought when I watched this video... The RPM should remain constant as long as the motor can get enough energy to spin it(overcoming the mass of the object). The amount of airflow and the load on the motor would be the two possible dynamic variables. After thinking about it more... I suppose if he's turning the fan on max output which should use a constant load, then the RPMs could vary. Not enough details given to confirm...
Fun fact: the dimples on golf balls are actually useful for slightly increasing the turbulence, because a small amount of turbulence keeps the ball from forming a low-pressure area behind it in flight, which would slow it down greatly.
You nailed it! When a golf ball is hit by a club the angle on the clubs face causes the ball to have a back spin. On a smooth golf ball this back spin accomplishes almost nothing. However when that golf ball has dimples they effectively create "bearings" of turbulent air that transmit some of the high pressure it is facing ahead to the low pressure area behind it. This also accounts for how their climb seems to defy gravity. This turbulent effect applies most to the aerodynamics of a sphere, and there have been amazing experiments showing a golf ball with only a central stripe of dimples could fix a slice (banned of course). However we don't see dimples on airplane wings, and for good reason. A quick google search will do a better job than I explaining that balls experience turbulent flow and wings experience laminar flow and this changes everything. Simply put a fan blade is a type of wing, it experiences laminar air flow thus different rules. Fun experiment, and good job testing it out. I think someone mentioned measuring current draw at a given RPM to determine if the fan experienced less drag, which is a good question. Also someone pointed out less raw material consumption is also a good and measurable gain. For anyone interested in the real physics explanation I have a decent link below. Cheers! physics.stackexchange.com/questions/109395/why-arent-airplanes-like-golf-balls
One more question I have regarding the laminar flow effect over a wing, if you had the dimples only on the low pressure face of the fan blade, would this increase or decrease the low pressure effect (lift) of the wing (blade)? Next, same experiment, but with the dimples on the high pressure side of the wing (blade), would this increase or decrease the lift effect of the wing? Lastly, would dimples have any beneficial or negative benefits to wing stall? Cheers, Mark
@@markcleveland3790 As I understand drag, creating higher pressure on either side would destablize the wing, creating turbulance. You want low pressure on the low pressure side. If you increase the pressure, you lose the pull. It seems to me that dimples would create a smoke signal effect, puffing air, thus causing unwanted vibrations that could build upon themselves until critical failure and your wing goes flying off. I don't think a fan blade would express it the same way because of the curved trajectory of the blade around a centrifuge and the shape of the blade designed to funnel the air toward center. I think a closed circuit fan (w/casing) may also be mitigating the effect of the dimples, while an open fan (No casing) may show up the turbulance a little more.
@@markcleveland3790 Great question! I am not always good at explaining complicated things (I'm an engineer, not a teacher) but I will do my best. Fair warning, it is probably gonna take me multiple paragraphs to answer this with adequate explanation. Dimples on the high pressure side of the wing (bottom) would decrease lift because it would increase drag and the air on top would no longer have to move faster to exit the rear of the wing at the same time. It would also increase drag by an order of magnitude more than the lift gains you would see, double whammy. Dimples on the low pressure side would increase lift as the air would have to go over the wing even faster than before to meet its counterpart on the bottom of the wing. However the amount of drag this creates is again an order of magnitude larger than the lift. It is vastly more efficient to fly faster with minimal drag to increase lift than it is exponentially increasing drag for a bit of lift. Now, this is important, There are 2 types of drag we must add together to figure out our total drag. As one goes up, the other inherently goes down and vice versa. When an object moves through the air it makes a high pressure area ahead of it and a low pressure area behind it, this is standard drag. When air flows over a surface it experienced drag proportional to the smoothness or roughness of the surface, surface drag. The more "blunt" and object is, the more it is affected by standard drag. The more streamlined and aerodynamic an object becomes the more it is affected by surface drag. For example a blunt semi truck has to fight standard drag while a Lambo cuts through standard drag very well so it is more affected by surface drag. Dimples reduce standard drag while increasing surface drag. A sphere experiences primarily standard drag thus dimples are good. a wing or fan blade experience primarily surface drag thus dimples are bad. Anything contrary I may have hinted at in my previous post was due to exhaustion and alcohol. When we say something is "more aerodynamic" it is less blunt thus more affected by surface drag because it cuts through standard drag. When we say something is "less aerodynamic" its blunt leading edge experiences primarily standard drag which saps more energy than surface drag. You gain more from having a pointy front on a semi truck than you would from a glassy smooth surface all the way down. Before anyone asks, "No, a semi truck will NOT get better gas mileage if it had dimples". Unless you could make the cab a dimpled sphere with back spin...
manufacturing it would be more complicated and would require more precision. plus with details like that, the tools might become off spec sooner. the material isn't everything when it comes to price of manufacturing
@@The4stro not to mention you still need more material to make it stiffer because removing material that's structural and leaving holes in it makes it more prone to breaking, so you gotta add more
@@bluflare12345 it's not about how challenging it is. it's about price. i just finished school for a toolmaker. toolmaker is someone who takes care of dies (also known as tools, hence toolmaker) for injection molding or any other kind of molding, so i know a bit about molding. making a tool for manufacturing a fan with dimples would be more expensive, because the tool is more complicated. the tool might become off spec sooner because it has smaller and more defined details, so it needs to be replaced or fixed sooner, which again, costs money. also, a detailed tool like that might create more bad parts, which again... costs money. yes, you might save like 10% on material, but you will waste like 15% stuff i just explained
Indeed! and what about actual product - What is the airflow IE does it cool the PC etc. more? a bench test just doesn't say when that circuit will tell the fan when it needs to work. With less material causing cost savings and if it is more efficient IE uses less current (less money from your pocket to the nasty old utility company) that is the real test i think. Sorry if I repeated a thought. This is very intriguing idea.
Yes, the goal is efficiency (watts, CFM, BTU, dbm) so should the measurements be such. Reminds me of a certain show that "busted" concepts using non-objective test methods based on personal myths.
Yes, we did see the same RPM coming lol. Compare the current draw, the RPM are a testament to the motor speed control, the blades however could impact efficiency of the motor. I.e. drawing more power to maintain 1880 rpm.
Make a fan with horizontal blades but give them the cross section of a an aeroplane wing so as it spins it creates a pressure difference. Doubt it'll do anything but a lot of profiles to choose from! Maybe print a few and test it out :) Edit: Don't print whole fans with the blades. When playing around with the blade angle, print out a bunch of "caps" (the thing blades connect to) and each can have slots at different angles. Theoretically you'd be able to test blade angles AND blade counts this way. By only printing a set of fan blades once, it'll save on plastic and time. The "cap" can have 36 slots (effectively a 36-gon) but you don't have to populate all of them, you could simulate 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 12, 18 and 36 blade fan on one cap with one set of blades. 36 is just a nice divisor.
Unfortunately this just doesn't work. Think of an airplane propeller, it has lift properties but gets most of its "power" from the angle of the blades. But I like your line of thinking!
literally just watched the holey fans an hour ago. and i immediately thought what if fan blades have golf ball dimples. and there you go, responding to viewer's request by reading mind across the world wide web
It is in no way surprising that the two blades spin at the same speed: the motor is likely designed to run at a target speed. The interesting questions are: 1) does it move more air (and is that flow less turbulent)? 2) does the motor take less power to achieve the speed? 3) does it improve static pressure?
Actually the point of the dimples on the golf ball is to induce turbulence. Turbulent flow splits later than laminar flow, reducing the pressure drag on the ball. It does increase skin friction but pressure drag is much stronger. I
@@JZhang-of7iw just because there is more surface turbulence on the fan blade surface doesn't mean there is more turbulence in the air flowing off of the blade. That might seem intuitive, but the physical reality often isn't intuitive.
Aerodynamically, dimple patterns work best when there is randonmess in the pattern, and not just a repeating fixed pattern. A small amount of randonmess is enough, but makes a big effect on drag.
Your correct, but only 1/2 correct. 1st it's true that a complex dimple pattern will reduce air turbulence=farther flight. 2nd dimple patterns are not random; there are multiple different dimple patterns and manufacturers either prefer specific patterns for cosmetics OR more likely in their testing they picked the one that flew a tiny amount farther. Note; probably 15 to 20 years since I read an article on why golf balls have specific dimple patterns they do...so I forgot most of article. Not important; dimple pattern in video has sharp transition between ideal partial sphere cross section and flat surface; golf ball has radius 1/16 circle arc for perhaps 45 degrees? He did not do that in case program even though printer is precise enough to make that smooth vs sharp transition...but would not have made detectable difference beside being visibly closer to golf ball dimple. Ummm my description of that is awkward; sorry.
@@MajorHardware What about the fortex gen with the dimples on a curved blade fan ? but make sure, the vortex gens are on the END of the blades, not on the beginning like u did last time (the evo's vortex gens are not on the beginning of the roof, but they are at the end of it), and maybe on the other side which contacts with the air.
Many years ago at Bristol University I was involved with hydraulic tests on tubes with golf size dimples, these demonstrated that boundary layer friction was drastically reduced. Size of dimple to velocity is the key here.
true. and this is only one of many factors to consider. this case is so complicated that to reliably test whether dimples TRULY have any benefit/downside, it would take more than a mere 15 minute video. and it would take FAR more effort. this is why this video is pretty much pointless besides entertainment purposes. nothing reliable can be learned from this video.
Hello Craig! What's the realation between dimple size and air speed? Does it depend on the speed, more than on the size of the actual object in which you want to reduce the drag? Thanks, regards!
@@youngputter239 I mean I'm hardly convinced that this guy knows more than the youtuber. I thought the motors mostly output the same wattage how fast that spins depends on the fan. Why should I believe that this motor has some feature that makes it always spin the same rpm no matter what's attached. Surely the youtuber/engineer would be aware if that was the case
@@monhi64 Mostly because that saves BIOS work when regulating fan speeds. If it didn't have a preset static speed, changing the speed of the fan through the BIOS would require constant updates and adjustments. Making it built-in to the fan itself would show up as a change in current draw or voltage as the fan would handle the speed set once by the BIOS. I realize this wasn't in a PC, but if the fan was designed to go in a PC, having a fan that you could set a defined speed on allowing it to vary the current/voltage would be a huge benefit to the BIOS. Kind of set it and forget it. Meaning this may be the standard for this kind of fan. The real test should have been to attach the fan to a motherboard that allows incremental changes in fan speed. Create a table and plot the voltage per RPM and see if there is a difference. A significant difference in current/voltage may indicate a more efficient fan design though the RPM stayed the same. I'm not saying this is a fact, just that it makes a lot of sense.
@@Jaseinatl ok I kinda understand what your saying. So one thing that doesnt make sense is like what's the supposed point of the dimples. Do they blow more wind? Like if they pushed more air they would have a higher air resistance and it would make the motor work harder to spin it. So its making more wind still at the cost of more energy. Why not just make the fan spin faster that is also more energy. But idk maybe one would require less extra energy. I dont think you necessarily want the fan that can turn with the least air resistance and that would mean it blows less air but idk I'm sure someone knows the answer to that question lol
Recommendations from an engineer in automotive design: learn how to design airfoils, is not that hard, look for blades that are thinner (smaller cross sectional area) towards the center and higher cross sectional area towards the edge, the angle of attack must be higher towards the center than towards the edge
All this complicated dimple mumbo jumbo and you missed the simplest, easiest, most well known scientific fact of making things go faster. Just add flame decals!
10% materials savings would add up in a mass production line when cranking out tens of thousands of these. Was the print time the same? Any strength gained from the dimple pattern? You’ve proved the dimples don’t have any effect - which might be a GREAT thing if their other properties have benefits (less weight, less material, etc). Perhaps this can be scalable to windmills, where material cost along with a 10% weight reduction would matter a LOT.
If you do wind up saving a little on manufacturing, sure, that's one thing, but a more complex design, depending on the manufacturing process, it might be more costly versus the saved material. As in taking longer, so you can only push 95% the amount as before, and materials were only 5% of the cost to begin with... you lose 5% of sales to save... 0.5% of your costs...
Dimples would actually require more material to get the same rigidity, current fan blades are thin enough that removing the material for dimples would compromise the structure
Yeah actually thats a big one to major production material cost etc so yeah major benefit seeing as there is no loss also could be awesome new design that companies would invest in and buy the patient.
I saw that done to a car at ''The Tron'' Edinburgh in 1980 - way before Mythbusters. Some visitor left his car (illegally) parked overnight, without knowing about the new year's eve party - where it got comprehensively danced upon by 5000 revellers. I saw the poor guy getting a drubbing from his wife as they were picking it up the next morning. Still the funniest fly-on-the-wall story I have.
@@christianweiss4971 power out equals power in times efficiency factor. Standard blade is probably efficient enough that the difference is not noticible. It did sound a little bit softer, maybe for larger fans it could help reduce noise a little bit.
This reminds me of the mythbusters where they added golf ball dimples to a car. It actually increased the milage quite a bit. One of the unexpected best wins on the show.
@@steveogilvie1773 They adjusted for the weight of the clay (though not evenly distributed) with the control and the dimpled design did better than the control. If you don't know then don't say, people will often conflate assumptions with fact.
I parked my car on a driving range to get the dimples for fuel savings. After spending $2000 replacing the windows, I'm proud to say I save $0.50 every week on gas. It will only take 4000 weeks to break even.
the reason dimples help golf balls is they help the air cling around the curve of the golf ball so it doesn't drag a mass of air behind it the back side of the ball. that isn't going on with a fan blade.
Yes, was about to say this. I have a white one and a clear one and they are indeed very quiet. They came with little rubber thingies instead of screws so to dampen sound even more.
One thing that I would really be interested to know is whether (or how much) two counter rotating fans improve performance compared to e.g. two stacked fans rotating in the same direction. In theory the second fan will (as well as adding more energy) remove some of the turbulence in the air stream created by the first fan, thus increasing flow velocity. This approach is not really common in PC building, so a perfect test scenario for you ;-) The second fan needs an unusual blade design, basically inverted, but optimized rotors can look quite crazy. Keep up the great work!
Theres been quite a few turbo prop planes that used counter rotating props to achieve faster speeds. They're also unbelievably loud. Would be quite interesting.
@@ViperDent Thanks for pointing that out! The difference with the scythe cooler is that both fans are separated by a set of fins, which will have already straightened out the airflow once the air hits the second fan. So i think there still would be something to learn by placing two fans back-to-back, creating a true counter rotating fan setup.
Where's my fan with built in whistle cuts? I need something that plays a different pitch on each blade. Ideally, it needs to play ominous music when it starts running too slow. This is a totally practical item, which has much demand. I swear.
I would buy something like that if it was fully functional. I.e the whistling wasnt extremely loud and or high pitched, almost like background music would be; you know its there but its not completely distracting
@@silervanguard1998 Pssssh. You're doing this wrong bro. That's what industrial grade acoustic foam is for. Just isolate your speakers and set up a whisper line for the fans
I'd like to see you test the resistance on the 12v rail from the fan! (or just how many amps it's pulling to the fan) Maybe it would take more power but can reach the same speed sometimes Your testing is very cool!
Yup. Thats how some vets weigh lazy or large baby animals. First take their own weight and then carry the animal in their arms onto the scales. There are some pretty damn cute animal vids of it out there. The dood carrying a baby giraffe is cute.
As long as the scale is actually sensitive enough to measure that low of a difference in weight but just not that low of a weight overall. A lot of scales cut out at a minimum because it's less than their sensitivity, e.g., a scale that weighs down to tenth of a gram won't be able to accurately weigh anything less than that no matter how much extra weight you put on it.
@@TwelveCrows I clicked on the video because I was interested in the video title, I did watch the video though, and didn't really think it was worth sitting through it for the answer.
the opposite, if you had a fan with 0 drag, it would be the perfect fan since all it would fight against would be "deflection"! drag only makes the fan spin slower while deflection makes the fan spin slower but pushes the air out. lack of drag will not stop it from scooping air and deflecting it.
First time here, left wondering about where you could go from here. 1. A golf balls dimples are actually a recessed hexagon, not round and they work only when the golf ball actually rotates in the air moving the air around the golf ball in a separate layer affecting drag.On the fan the dimples have no such obvious ability . 2. If the Dimples can not duplicate the golf balls air flow - moving air from high pressure area at the front to the low pressure area at the rear in a separate layer, then what other benefits could they offer or problems they could cause?? 3. Some possible measurables; - Is the fan quieter or noisier (Decibels) - Do dimples affect the quantity of air being moved (cubic feet/minute) - Is the same or better air flow created for a lower power consumption, how many watts to move x cubic feet/minute - Is there Particulate adhesion to the fan blades, does dust accumulate more or less with dimples thus affecting the efficiency over time - You have shown that there is a 10% reduction in material required to manufacture, this could be a significant saving if you manufacture in the 100k's or they are used in space where a gram costs $2 to orbit so 12,000 starlink satellites (approved) saving 1 gram each is a $24,000 saving. Every gram counts. - If you ensure all the dimples on the fan are complete and none are cut off at the edges, does this affect any of these measureables. Maybe incomplete dimples at the edges degrade the fans performance. These are just a few ideas on what you could test for - if a jobs worth doing a YT vid on it, then science the _if you see Kay_ out of it.
Your "real" measurements are only smarter and better in a decimal system. I can evenly divide a foot by 3 equaling 4 inches. Hours are divided in to 60 minutes instead of 100 because the ancient Sumerians realized 8000 years before the British that 1/3 measurements break decimal based systems. Anyone trying to have an intellectual discussion about technical things should be smart enough to convert inches to metric and back again, otherwise you are just dumbing this down for the rest of us, good job.
@@willchristian5954 The simple fact is that both systems are good at what they do, but there is no universal system that does all of it equally well. Anyone who loves one and hates the other is simply someone who can't do a basic conversion when necessary and can't understand why there's more than one system. That goes for both sides of the argument. It's like saying "It's stupid that we have to speak French in France just to eat at McDonalds, let's make it mandatory for the entire world to only speak English because arbitrary reasons". No dumbass, learn French or get a translator...French has worked great for them since before English even existed.
@@Skinflaps_Meatslapper I think you and I are arguing the same side. I was not saying the metric system is stupid, I'm not that dumb. I was merely partaking a favored pastime of mocking people who are so ignorant they place absolute faith in the infallibility of something that is demonstrably flawed. I am blessed that most the inhabitants of the isle of Whales cant help but do this with the metric system, oh teh lulz. The scalability of the metric system is vital in helping our minds relate our world to the vastly huge and tiny worlds of astrophysics and quantum physics respectively. Simple naives expound its absolute superiority not because this is fact, but because it is easier for a dullard, and to a dullard easier is always superior. Doing commerce in a 120 base system instead of 100 would streamline the entire market by freeing people to buys/sell/negotiate in quantities of 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5, 1/6, 1/10, 1/12 and on without creating decimals and thus having to use change, while base 10 creates change at all intervals of 3, and lots of intervals of 4. Time is probably the most fun with numbers in a non base 10 system. is 1/3 of an hour 33.3333 to infinity? No, it is 20 minutes even. Time is elegant and really hard to explain the brilliance behind it. 4 is the lowest non prime multiple of 2, and 6 is the lowest non prime multiple of 3 and a multiple of 2. That's why we don't refer to time in decimals, it only makes decimals when we really try. But using the system we use for time in quantum physics would be painfully difficult. I want to apologize to Major Hardware for spamming this vid. I moved across the county during COVID so I really appreciate and outlet to talk about smart $#!7 with competent people. Thanks all.
Well, we don't use Imperial. We use American Customary Units, but semantics aside, they are near identical. Metric makes sense to me for precise measurements. Which I love. And I use American Customary for cutting wood. I have an old home and of course it is all American Customary, so I must measure accordingly. In USA we have been slowly integrating Metric measurements onto products since the 1970's - such as on liquid containers. The best example is everyone's familiarity with 2 Liter sodas, lol.
I just purchased my first 3D printer. I know nothing about CAD, but between your channel, and seeing Superman learn to build a computer, I am ready to learn something new again. (Subscribed!)
Solidworks is nice but takes some getting used too because it is more designed to build something from a drawing vs fusion which is more organic. I use Solidworks mostly because I find it easier to add things like fillets or make assemblies.
Jetah they’re easy until you’re told to troubleshoot with a known working part and have to go buy a *second* PSU, then a *second* motherboard, then a *second* GPU, and then you’re told to try a known working CPU which you absolutely can’t afford yet so you’re stuck out of cash and shit out of luck.
Jetah yes, PC’s are easy to build for anyone who is already experienced in doing so. The correlation between my statement is that Henry Cavill is an actor, and not a PC builder. He’s more familiar with acting than he is with building a PC. I’m a PC tech, and have been building PC’s for over the past 2 decades. Therefore, I am more familiar with PC’s and how they work vs building and using a 3D printer. Yes, In this day and age Google exists, and can be a great tool to use for research. However, like Henry Cavill, I took the time to RTFM, and build it. It’s a bit more rewarding that way. Carry on! :-)
The reason golf balls go farther when dimpled is supposedly due to a thin layer of air "sticking" to the ball in flight, which reduces the size of the low pressure zone behind the ball by smoothing out the airflow around the ball. At least that's the theory I've seen used to explain it several times. So the effect I would expect dimpled fan blades to produce would be reduced turbulence in the air being moved and perhaps less tendency to create drag inducing vortices at the ends of the blades, assuming those vortices are even an issue in a ducted fan. As others have pointed out, the fan is most likely designed to spin at a fixed rpm anyway, so even if drag is reduced by the dimples it's not going to result in the fan spinning faster. You could try the experiment using an unregulated DC motor, making sure the voltage stays consistent... What might be an interesting experiment though, would be to print two identical propellers except for the dimples on one of them and find out whether smoother airflow due to dimples produces any measurable difference in the amount of lift the prop generates at the same RPM, or if given the same voltage and propeller RPM less current is drawn due to reduced drag. Hehe, my curiosity about this may be just the excuse I needed to buy myself the 3d printer I've been coveting for a while now, so thanks! I'll just conveniently ignore the fact that I'm sure I'm not the first to think of this, and that every propeller and probably turbine blade made would be dimpled if any significant benefits were to be realized. 😉
A smooth ball generates laminar flow as it flies through the air, this lamination of air creates a pocket of low pressure behind the ball, a vacuum drag of you will. Those dimples work to generate turbulent flow and rid the ball of its low pressure zone, ever so slightly increasing wind resistance while lessening the effect of virtual drag, allowing the ball to travel further as well as straighter. I may have used a few layman terms, but the information is nonetheless correct.
Fan blades with a pitch naturally create that slight trailing vacuum which also translates to lift for an airfoil. Adding dimples to the pitched fan blade plane is not likely going to cancel the trailing vacuum effect which is a part of the nuance of why fans work. If your not trying to make lift or kinetic air flow and just want an object to move through a fluid more easily sometimes adding a little turbulence strategically will help.
Same speed was to be expected. It’s direct drive and as long as the drag does not increase like crazy the motor will just run its designed rom. Why not measure sound differences. Is the dimplenfan quiter or vv?
Couldn't you have curved the blades after getting all the dimples on them and let the program deal with the transformation of the dimples along the curves?
Hey dude awesome video! just a note from my observance i'd say golf balls have more hexagonal dimples than spherical. i wonder whether that would make a vast difference as would a curved blade combo. Just sharing thoughts. Thanks for inspiring a thought process
watching this i realize my evga gpu said something on it about the E's on the fan. they said it helps but not sure. pretty sure it would be the same as with dimples tho.
00:50 in... as a 3D hobbyist, i'd use the vertices on a low-poly proxy version of the blades to locate spheres (or deformed spheres to get a more shallow dimple) on the surface of each fan blade at each vertex, and boolean subtract them from the high-poly blades leading surface...
this was to simple of a design, to create and advance the design of dimples on golf balls they created better and better designs over several decades. adding generic dimples may not give measurable differences. if the wright brothers tried one thing and it didnt work, we might not have planes now. they continued small changes til it flew. 1: golf ball dimples are hexagons (spacing should also be measured) 2: they are not just offset but cross into the lines of other dimples 3: should have entire surface of the fan (this includes the cylindrical base) 4: try a curved profile for the blade and not a flat angle 5: make sure you are not using a fan that is limited to a rotational speed. 1880 might be its general upper end (for the supplied power) maybe try some more extreme speed fan motors. as they may be more of a weight limited motor in this series of tests. 6: also try a higher blade count and the same blade count as this test. 7: try 3 variants, for example... just dimpled on top side, just down side, and on both sides of blades to test if there is a difference among them.
this won't matter, nothing you can do to the dimples or the fan can make them work better because the reason dimples affect golf balls and not fans is that when an object moves through the air, it creates a low-pressure area behind it, creating drag and slowing down the body, because of this, a teardrop shape is the best shape for limiting drag since its outline follows the low-pressure area allowing it to negate the effect almost entirely. the golf ball on the other hand is made to be sphericle to allow for non-directional hits, and therefore must be designed to minimize drag some other way. this leads us to the dimples, and how they reduce drag. they do it by creating turbulence on the surface of the sphere, which creates vortexes swirling into the low-pressure zone behind the sphere, allowing air to fill the low-pressure zone more quickly, and lessening the effects of drag. now, the reason this effect doesn't work on the fan is that its shape is significantly better aerodynamically starting off, as its blades do not generate low-pressure the same way the sphere does, since they are already thin, and don't require air to bend its path nearly as much in order to pass around it.
@@brettleisy356 I understand that, however, the WRITTEN conclusion, is that this design could give a more pronounced positive effect if advanced further, and used on more advanced fan designs, which is simply untrue. the dimples on a golf ball give an aerodynamic-enhancement only because they reduce the size of the low-pressure zone behind the ball, whereas, on a fan, they create turbulence which re-directs the air out of the fan, limiting its theoretical maximum efficiency, and ruining it's design.
You should make a resin print for the dimples fan blade. You'll get a better flow. Any kind of lines from the print layers are problematic. Also, the dimples should be only on the low pressure side. They essentially disrupt the low pressure air so it doesn't fold back on itself. Im pretty sure you want as smooth as you can get on the high pressure side.
Whale tail has a wave pattern on the trailing edge to supposedly remix water better with less drag. Mosquito needle is serrated to go in with less feeling, they are looking at making hospital needles the same way. Shrug just some ideas.
If I was a fan manufacturer and had seen this, the reason why it is interesting is not because it performs better, but because as you pointed out, it weighs less. Only 1 gram less in a 12 gram object, but that is a weight reduction of around 8%. That would translate to a material reduction of 8% per blade, which is a substantial amount when factored into cost saving. I think that would translate as something for manufacturers to look at, and since I bet the plastic blades are injection molded, simply forming a new die with dimples similar to these would save these manufacturers a large amount of money.
"Depth of 0.01 inches, which in REAL measurements is..." I love it. I am stealing that. Whenever I have to convert from imperial to metric, I'm going to use that.
You'd just love the world of woodwind mouthpiece production. The gap between the reed and the tip is measured in inches, like .065". The length of the curve from the flat part to that opening is measured in units of _half a millimeter!_ That is, a measurement of 46 would mean 23 mm. And then the way of describing the volume of the interior is proprietary to each manufacturer.
What If Fan Blades Had Dimples Like A Golf Ball? A Question you never ever realised that you SERIOUSLY needed the answer to !!! Enjoying discovering your vids. Keep up the pleasant obsession.
did you not watch the video where he typed in 3.9878mm? wow. so much easier! you'll realize once you grow up that the metric system is just as arbitrary as imperial. The world is not a perfect place. Science doesn't obey laws of 10x and neither do any measurements.
lol, this video shows how much people have a complete misunderstanding on how fluid dynamics works. they try to glue pieces of information together and end up with totally wrong ideas. The dimples you put there are doing nothing to the air flow, because there is no air flow where they stand, just a void (or low pressure). Your blades have to much angle of attack and so the air flow detaches immediately past the leading edge. Also, the dimples need to be near or just past the leading edge where there is still air compression, which they are not. Also the dimples work favorably in a window of air speed, which will determine the size and depth of the dimple. Just copying an average value on wikipedia does not cut. this is exactly the type of engineering you see for example in some cycling wheels manufacturer, and its utterly BS... if you wanna improve you fan blades you need to round them in order to create a gradient of angle of attack (less angle past the leading edge). Only then you will be able to play with turbulent boundary layers (which is what dimples try to achieve) but you will have to use different methods then dimples. I think it was fractal design who tried to explore this concept on some of their fans, dont know how effective it worked, but the theory behind it seems right.
I was watching this to see what dimples do for golf balls not to make better fan blades, so kind of a different eye looking at this. Want a more efficient mover of air use a propeller (airfoil). I didn't learn what I wanted to when I clicked on the video. "Do dimples make a golf ball fly further"? If so, I assumed the dimples on the fan blades would have them moving less air (Drag). His summation at the end is very problematic. "Dimples make golf balls fly farther... but don't affect fan blades". The suggestion is that ONE object covered in dimples is greatly affected... And another is not".
this dude is insane; he can do CAD and he is dumb as hell. i have never studied fluid dynamics, but it makes me angry how studpid he is, common sense (children) can see taht his blades are wrong... but he get 1mio clicks and even though his results are meaningless he gets positive clicks. he even earned more money than it costed him... by spreading nonsense. now aged 8, among the first things i learnt was, that my deeds affect my sourrounding and also people around me. and i have responsibility. he couldnt keep up with that and therefore is less mature than some people who learn that aged 8 ... or 7 or 9 ....
I have never studied fluid dynamics or aerodynamics though I was thinking along the same lines. The overall diameter of the golf ball and the dimple size and the speed of travel and the direction and speed of rotation of the golf ball are all important factors that have the be balanced for there can be any positive effect. Plus, in sports even a 1% improvement in distance or stability is considered significant; but it would not be significant for something like cooling of a CPU. And, golf ball dimples don't actually look round to me, more like rounded corner hexagons. This must have some effect due to the the overall pattern of dimples on a golf ball not being entirely hexagonal. And lastly, the golf association as regulated the maximum distance the ball can travel when launched form test equipment, so if someone had engineered a better dimpling pattern or geometry they would not be usable in golf balls and therefore not a very good basis to start from for anything other than a school science fair project. That all being said, if the goal is for a middle school science fair project, then you probably got a B grade. Not bad, considering discoveries like Mpemba's are exceptionally rare.
@@russellnotestine6436 I commented on the video as well, but you might never see my comment. I decided to write your a reply directly because of common interest. Golf ball dimples work because of ball spin. When you strike the ball well, even with a driver, there is backspin. This causes the bottom of the ball to travel forward at a greater velocity than the top of the ball (Oversimplified math used only as an example: if the ball had a 1" circumference and struck at 1 inch per second (and no gravity to interfere with linear progression. If the rotation of the 1" ball was 1 rotation per second the ball's mass would rotate around the direction of travel it progressed. wobbling through the air. This is because the top of the ball would always be stationary while the bottom of the ball was moving at a total speed of 2" per second, and rotating around the top of the ball.) The ball would have linear progression, but only that every rotation of the ball would give a new "top" to rotate around, but the "top" would always be stationary. This speed differential is why golf balls are dimpled. if the bottom of the ball has faster linear progression speed than the top of the ball, the bottom of the ball creates lift. Have you ever watched a well struck drive travel off a the club face, then suddenly rise into the air? That is the lift from the dimples. It is also why a poorly struck golf ball travels 100 yards off a driver and suddenly turns hard right (slice) or left (hook). Also why right handed hitters typically hit slices and left handed players typically hit hooks. It all depends on how the ball spins off the club face. Hope this helps. I was a golf course superintendent for nearly 30 years, have worked in academics, and love science channels on youtube. This is my first video from this youtuber, I might give him another chance or two, but was very disappointed in his understanding of science from this video and don't expect much from him.
I'm sure someone has already said this but the dimples on a golfball is to catch air and create lift. It shifts the low pressure from behind the ball which would slow it down to under the ball, creating lift. A fan blade that pushes air is opposite of what you want, however if it was a fan that catches air like a wind turbine there would likely be a benefit.
Racer's Edge; Air Racer trick was to run an aerodynamic propeller spinner until they were banned in competition due to their propensity to leave the formation and go through someone's windscreen. Overcoming the high drag at the root of the prop blades where a Hamilton Standard transitions from a round tube shape into the narrow airfoil shape is now accomplished by random dimpling of the round hub end. FAA rules only allow this modification on Experimental certification aircraft. The dimpled surface acts to turbulate the air flow of the aerodynamically inefficient prop hub to blade transition. Although a totally different principle, you might think of it being similar to the area rule principle (Coke bottle shape) that allows supersonic wings to transition into the fuselage with less drag. Now that I have shared this secret with you, you are sworn to secrecy not to tell anyone.
Golf ball dimples are there because they cause some turbulence that helps the ball cut through the air better. Because the ball is rotating on all three axes as it flies, the dimples cause what's known as a turbulent flow that causes more initial drag, but actually reduces drag on shapes such as spheres. The fan blades work differently than a golf ball, so the turbulent flow from the dimples won't necessarily affect the speed at which the fan rotates, but should have a negative effect on the amount of air moved by the fan as the turbulent flow will reduce the speed at which the air moves past the fan blades.
I know we all already know this, but I just love doing this just to prove how stupid imperial measurement is: Metric 1Mm = 1,000km 1km = 1000m 1m = 1000mm 1mm = 1000µm Etcetera. No one really uses decimetres, decametres or hectometres, but everything fits into neat powers of 10 for easy conversion, and has proper names up to +/- 24 orders of magnitude. Imperial 1 league = 3 miles 1 mile = 8 furlongs 1 furlong = 10 chains 1 chain = 22 yards 1 yard = 3 feet 1 foot = 12 inches 1 inch = 1000 thou. There are more, like barley seeds, links, rods, fathoms, cables, etc... But I think they were phased out long ago. I never hear furlongs, chains or leagues used, so you get ridiculous jumps in conversion like 1 mile = 5280 feet. In what world is does this make it easy to convert units?! QUICK! Convert 3.14 miles to feet without a calculator!!....... Exactly. 16,579.2 feet. Oh wait, imperial hates decimal, so 16,579 feet, 2 and ~13/32 inches. I do like how the factions are in base 2 though (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, etc), that's neat. QUICK! Convert 3.14 km to metres without a calculator!!..... 3,140m? Wow! How simple! Sorry for the rant lmao . Decent fan design, though a curved blade might help the dimples make an impact... Though I'm not sure ;) Edit: Imperial made me overthink 3.14 x 1000 lmao.
@@RadanValenta and Tonton, you're both absolutely right. I was so flustered from whipping up stupid imperial calculations that I forgot how to do simple maths lmao
Imperial was invented by the Romans who created an extremely practical system. Everything is based on common items that everyone has in order to make estimating easy. Precision is worthless in everyday life anyway. Do you tell someone the gas station is 7.15km east or 7km east? It literally does not matter because your number was close enough. As for what they mean, if you measure your foot you'll find that it's roughly a foot. If you walk 1000 paces you'll find you've walked roughly a mile. Either way there's no realistic situation where you have to convert units anyway, so the entire unit conversion thing is moot. How many objects are you measuring that are 1m on one edge and 1km on the other? What are you gonna travel 50m in your car? There's virtually no cross-over in which you'd need to convert units. The only time it's useful at all is fairly small units, like mm to cm, but I mean your measuring device will likely be labeled sufficiently that it does the work for you, or you could just stay in mm. Why bother using 30cm when 300mm works just the same? It's not like you've got to count them and you'll save hours by using 30 instead of 300, just look at the number on your measuring device. It's not even better for dividing. Say your house is 15.73m wide and you want to divide it evenly into quarters. Guess what you need? Either math skills or a calculator, no different than imperial.
Have you thought about doing a scalloped sawtooth pattern on the trailing edge? This reduces drag and noise while improving flow through turbulence reduction. This is mimicking an owl’s wing and is being used in things like formula 1 and aerodynamic bicycles. They want to use it on wind turbine blades, but the forces on the blades are currently too high - which shouldn't be a problem in your small fan blades. Another idea to improve flow and reduce vortices and noise would be to stack thinner fan blades over each other as with formula 1 front and rear wings. You may need to include pillars to support the tips and you could even add bunny ears off the tops of the pillared section to further increase efficiency and flow.
I closed my eyes when you did the sound test so I wasn’t effected by knowing when the change occurred, and had to open them to see if you’d actually changed them, I would say that’s no difference noticed 😅
Really? That's pretty interesting I did the same and noticed a difference, it wasn't really a volume change but more of a slightly different noise. I found the Dimple fan to have a sort of playing card in a bike wheel sound but it was really tiny while the regular fan was a steadier humm.
Straight blades have a steady airflow sound the dimples actually added a slight frequency variation to it if you listen closely you can hear it every other second or so the pitch alters and it's like the frequency of the blades (or rpm) is changing which I didn't notice in the straight blades
A golf ball has dimples to create turbulence around the spherical blunt body reducing pressure drag. A fan blade is not a blunt body and designed to take advantage of pressure drag creating a force normal to the blade usually called lift. This is an interesting experiment. Thanks for showing us the results and design steps.
The dimples in a golf ball reduce the drag of the ball . This is done by creating turbulence and this reduces the pressure difference drag. Here is a video explaining it ruclips.net/video/5zI9sG3pjVU/видео.html min 9.3 (if you can see it complet I recommend it.). If you see the video you would understand that dimples do not present a benefit in this case, because a fan works buy creating a pressure difference and it moves the air it doesn't pass through it (i'm not sure this is a correct explanation). I didn't expect it to perform as well.
Bro, I said the same thing. Dimples allow somehting to "cut" thru air with minimal resistance. If you are "cutting" thru air with ease, you are not going to MOVE as much air. The fan WITH DIMPLES IS GONG TO BE LESS EFFICIENT AT MOVING AIR.
I'm a researcher in AI, specialising in optimisation. I would be fascinated to see what type of fan blade an evolutionary algorithm would come out with.
I have worked evos for wing design and they come out very interesting. Although you needed access to a supercomputer for these types of high fidelity simulations.
Performance intake manifolds also have dimples in the pipes, the dimples create small vortaxes that reduce drag and speed up the airflow which is useful for goldballs and intake flow.
Dimples on a sphere has to do with disrupting boundary layer adhesion. Spheres are also capable of lift. On a fan blade you would think you would want adhesion and boundary layer flow. There would definitely be differences at turbine speeds.
Next time, do a surface pattern and define the gap to your surface edges. (hex or staggered pattern - what you need) Follow that by twisting the blade with a solid twist and then axial pattern the blade with all features. Printing a curved fan blade in a PLA printer is hard. You need supports as the curve flattens out on the intake or the printing will be in the air and fail. You could do the hub and individual blades printed vertically and glue them up together later. Fan blades print best in SLA and you can lithograph up without support and just let the blades/hub hang. Did my own fans blades for R&D test before sending to molding and manufacturing thousands. Hope this helps. :)
you know how jet turbines have a section called the compressor where there are alternating spinning and stationary blades (fins). wonder what that would do for airflow if it were shrouded right?
The static blades are called airflow conditioners they pretty much make the direction of the air from one stage of the compressor to the next more appropriate. Technically on a cooling system you want to increase the mass flow of fluid through the radiator fins, and air flow conditioners wouldn’t be necessary for that but I also don’t think they would hurt much
They'd prolly have to be tested in a turbo or jet engine to see any difference... But they're is a difference I bet. Just increase the size, number of blades, material construction and crank up the RPMs of course.
Bro, I said the same thing. Dimples allow something to "cut" thru air with minimal resistance. If you are "cutting" thru air with ease, you are not going to MOVE as much air. The fan WITH DIMPLES IS GONG TO BE LESS EFFICIENT AT MOVING AIR. Unless they are done on one side of the blade. Good thinking!
Callaway created the HX ball with hexagonal dimples IUN 2002, which is marginally better. But most golf balls have spherical dimples, roughly .010" in depth with anywhere from 300-500 per ball depending on make and manufacture. DONT ALL CAPS WHEN YOU DONT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT, IT ANNOYS THE REST OF US.
first off the hexagonal appierance is an optical illusion, secondly, this won't matter, nothing you can do to the dimples or the fan can make them work better because the reason dimples affect golf balls and not fans is that when an object moves through the air, it creates a low-pressure area behind it, creating drag and slowing down the body, because of this, a teardrop shape is the best shape for limiting drag since its outline follows the low-pressure area allowing it to negate the effect almost entirely. the golf ball on the other hand is made to be sphericle to allow for non-directional hits, and therefore must be designed to minimize drag some other way. this leads us to the dimples, and how they reduce drag. they do it by creating turbulence on the surface of the sphere, which creates vortexes swirling into the low-pressure zone behind the sphere, allowing air to fill the low-pressure zone more quickly, and lessening the effects of drag. now, the reason this effect doesn't work on the fan is that its shape is significantly better aerodynamically starting off, as its blades do not generate low-pressure the same way the sphere does, since they are already thin, and don't require air to bend its path nearly as much in order to pass around it.
I saw it coming. The dimples are there to reduce drag due to the low pressure drag bubble behind a moving object. This allows things (golf balls and cars have been proven) to have less drag so they can travel farther, use less energy (e.g. fuel), or go faster.
Actually, I think you should rather measure current flow instead of RPM, as the actual RPM are more or less steady no matter the load(fans tend to hold a steady RPM and regulate themselves), while the current draw might actually change alot. If you have a higher load and try to maintain the same rpm, you have to put more power into it, so the current rises.
Could try checking the airflow as well.
@@JasonWaltonDriveAlong yeah you're right, i think the best option would be to compare the amps per amount of airflow or something🤔
Also higher speeds on the fan will give more effect from the dimples. My guess is it'll reduce noise.
I had the exact same thought when I watched this video... The RPM should remain constant as long as the motor can get enough energy to spin it(overcoming the mass of the object). The amount of airflow and the load on the motor would be the two possible dynamic variables. After thinking about it more... I suppose if he's turning the fan on max output which should use a constant load, then the RPMs could vary. Not enough details given to confirm...
Yep, when we performance test fans at work we measure cfm and wattage.
Fun fact: the dimples on golf balls are actually useful for slightly increasing the turbulence, because a small amount of turbulence keeps the ball from forming a low-pressure area behind it in flight, which would slow it down greatly.
Performance intake manifolds in racecars use the same principle to speed up the air flow
You nailed it! When a golf ball is hit by a club the angle on the clubs face causes the ball to have a back spin. On a smooth golf ball this back spin accomplishes almost nothing. However when that golf ball has dimples they effectively create "bearings" of turbulent air that transmit some of the high pressure it is facing ahead to the low pressure area behind it. This also accounts for how their climb seems to defy gravity.
This turbulent effect applies most to the aerodynamics of a sphere, and there have been amazing experiments showing a golf ball with only a central stripe of dimples could fix a slice (banned of course). However we don't see dimples on airplane wings, and for good reason. A quick google search will do a better job than I explaining that balls experience turbulent flow and wings experience laminar flow and this changes everything. Simply put a fan blade is a type of wing, it experiences laminar air flow thus different rules.
Fun experiment, and good job testing it out. I think someone mentioned measuring current draw at a given RPM to determine if the fan experienced less drag, which is a good question. Also someone pointed out less raw material consumption is also a good and measurable gain. For anyone interested in the real physics explanation I have a decent link below. Cheers!
physics.stackexchange.com/questions/109395/why-arent-airplanes-like-golf-balls
One more question I have regarding the laminar flow effect over a wing, if you had the dimples only on the low pressure face of the fan blade, would this increase or decrease the low pressure effect (lift) of the wing (blade)?
Next, same experiment, but with the dimples on the high pressure side of the wing (blade), would this increase or decrease the lift effect of the wing?
Lastly, would dimples have any beneficial or negative benefits to wing stall?
Cheers,
Mark
@@markcleveland3790 As I understand drag, creating higher pressure on either side would destablize the wing, creating turbulance. You want low pressure on the low pressure side. If you increase the pressure, you lose the pull. It seems to me that dimples would create a smoke signal effect, puffing air, thus causing unwanted vibrations that could build upon themselves until critical failure and your wing goes flying off. I don't think a fan blade would express it the same way because of the curved trajectory of the blade around a centrifuge and the shape of the blade designed to funnel the air toward center.
I think a closed circuit fan (w/casing) may also be mitigating the effect of the dimples, while an open fan (No casing) may show up the turbulance a little more.
@@markcleveland3790 Great question! I am not always good at explaining complicated things (I'm an engineer, not a teacher) but I will do my best. Fair warning, it is probably gonna take me multiple paragraphs to answer this with adequate explanation.
Dimples on the high pressure side of the wing (bottom) would decrease lift because it would increase drag and the air on top would no longer have to move faster to exit the rear of the wing at the same time. It would also increase drag by an order of magnitude more than the lift gains you would see, double whammy.
Dimples on the low pressure side would increase lift as the air would have to go over the wing even faster than before to meet its counterpart on the bottom of the wing. However the amount of drag this creates is again an order of magnitude larger than the lift. It is vastly more efficient to fly faster with minimal drag to increase lift than it is exponentially increasing drag for a bit of lift.
Now, this is important, There are 2 types of drag we must add together to figure out our total drag. As one goes up, the other inherently goes down and vice versa. When an object moves through the air it makes a high pressure area ahead of it and a low pressure area behind it, this is standard drag. When air flows over a surface it experienced drag proportional to the smoothness or roughness of the surface, surface drag. The more "blunt" and object is, the more it is affected by standard drag. The more streamlined and aerodynamic an object becomes the more it is affected by surface drag. For example a blunt semi truck has to fight standard drag while a Lambo cuts through standard drag very well so it is more affected by surface drag.
Dimples reduce standard drag while increasing surface drag. A sphere experiences primarily standard drag thus dimples are good. a wing or fan blade experience primarily surface drag thus dimples are bad. Anything contrary I may have hinted at in my previous post was due to exhaustion and alcohol.
When we say something is "more aerodynamic" it is less blunt thus more affected by surface drag because it cuts through standard drag. When we say something is "less aerodynamic" its blunt leading edge experiences primarily standard drag which saps more energy than surface drag. You gain more from having a pointy front on a semi truck than you would from a glassy smooth surface all the way down.
Before anyone asks, "No, a semi truck will NOT get better gas mileage if it had dimples". Unless you could make the cab a dimpled sphere with back spin...
you could reverse the dimples to make a bumpy surface , or use a shark scales pattern as it's made to flow perfectly at least underwater...
It would be very interesting to see the scale pattern tested out!
@@shandyozaki9579 especially under water
Sharks don't have scales
@@scoutboy440 Sharks have scales. ruclips.net/video/Q6s-JvOKNP8/видео.html
I learned today that sharks have scales... off a video about fans 😂
If they're functional. Saving 10% of material over two million fans... That's good manufacturing 😁
manufacturing it would be more complicated and would require more precision. plus with details like that, the tools might become off spec sooner. the material isn't everything when it comes to price of manufacturing
@@The4stro not to mention you still need more material to make it stiffer because removing material that's structural and leaving holes in it makes it more prone to breaking, so you gotta add more
@@FAQUERETERMAX true dat
@@The4stro its plastic, isnt it? How challenging could injection molding be?
@@bluflare12345 it's not about how challenging it is. it's about price. i just finished school for a toolmaker. toolmaker is someone who takes care of dies (also known as tools, hence toolmaker) for injection molding or any other kind of molding, so i know a bit about molding. making a tool for manufacturing a fan with dimples would be more expensive, because the tool is more complicated. the tool might become off spec sooner because it has smaller and more defined details, so it needs to be replaced or fixed sooner, which again, costs money. also, a detailed tool like that might create more bad parts, which again... costs money. yes, you might save like 10% on material, but you will waste like 15% stuff i just explained
Decibel meter and airflow meter would be a good thing to add to your testing I think.
Indeed! and what about actual product - What is the airflow IE does it cool the PC etc. more? a bench test just doesn't say when that circuit will tell the fan when it needs to work. With less material causing cost savings and if it is more efficient IE uses less current (less money from your pocket to the nasty old utility company) that is the real test i think. Sorry if I repeated a thought. This is very intriguing idea.
Glad I saw your comment because if those aren't in the video I'm not going past the... 1 minute mark. Thanks again.
Also he could have looked at energy consumption.
@@propositionjoe6936 Prop Joe, how right you are.
Yes, the goal is efficiency (watts, CFM, BTU, dbm) so should the measurements be such.
Reminds me of a certain show that "busted" concepts using non-objective test methods based on personal myths.
Yes, we did see the same RPM coming lol. Compare the current draw, the RPM are a testament to the motor speed control, the blades however could impact efficiency of the motor. I.e. drawing more power to maintain 1880 rpm.
Make a fan with horizontal blades but give them the cross section of a an aeroplane wing so as it spins it creates a pressure difference.
Doubt it'll do anything but a lot of profiles to choose from! Maybe print a few and test it out :)
Edit: Don't print whole fans with the blades. When playing around with the blade angle, print out a bunch of "caps" (the thing blades connect to) and each can have slots at different angles. Theoretically you'd be able to test blade angles AND blade counts this way. By only printing a set of fan blades once, it'll save on plastic and time. The "cap" can have 36 slots (effectively a 36-gon) but you don't have to populate all of them, you could simulate 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 12, 18 and 36 blade fan on one cap with one set of blades.
36 is just a nice divisor.
I second this!
Unfortunately this just doesn't work. Think of an airplane propeller, it has lift properties but gets most of its "power" from the angle of the blades. But I like your line of thinking!
Edit2: Give it only 2 blades for authenticity sake?
@@tobiasgunny Yeah, he'll have to play around with it :D
it seems fun, 4 plane-wing-blades vs 2 plane-wing-blades vs 4 fan-blades vs 2 fan-blades
literally just watched the holey fans an hour ago. and i immediately thought what if fan blades have golf ball dimples. and there you go, responding to viewer's request by reading mind across the world wide web
It is in no way surprising that the two blades spin at the same speed: the motor is likely designed to run at a target speed.
The interesting questions are:
1) does it move more air (and is that flow less turbulent)?
2) does the motor take less power to achieve the speed?
3) does it improve static pressure?
yeah was hoping this got answered lol
Actually the point of the dimples on the golf ball is to induce turbulence. Turbulent flow splits later than laminar flow, reducing the pressure drag on the ball. It does increase skin friction but pressure drag is much stronger. I
Absolutely - the power consumed to maintain the same volumetric flow is the important factor as you're trying to improve the efficiency of the fan.
@@JZhang-of7iw just because there is more surface turbulence on the fan blade surface doesn't mean there is more turbulence in the air flowing off of the blade. That might seem intuitive, but the physical reality often isn't intuitive.
You guys all sound smarter than me so wheres the answers?🤨😂
Aerodynamically, dimple patterns work best when there is randonmess in the pattern, and not just a repeating fixed pattern. A small amount of randonmess is enough, but makes a big effect on drag.
I never knew that, I’ll have to look into it, sounds really interesting
Kepler its because air acts as a fluid under the laws of turbulence
Your correct, but only 1/2 correct. 1st it's true that a complex dimple pattern will reduce air turbulence=farther flight. 2nd dimple patterns are not random; there are multiple different dimple patterns and manufacturers either prefer specific patterns for cosmetics OR more likely in their testing they picked the one that flew a tiny amount farther. Note; probably 15 to 20 years since I read an article on why golf balls have specific dimple patterns they do...so I forgot most of article. Not important; dimple pattern in video has sharp transition between ideal partial sphere cross section and flat surface; golf ball has radius 1/16 circle arc for perhaps 45 degrees? He did not do that in case program even though printer is precise enough to make that smooth vs sharp transition...but would not have made detectable difference beside being visibly closer to golf ball dimple. Ummm my description of that is awkward; sorry.
Golf balls have dimples to maximize spin I believe
Have a look at a Tesla valve..
Please never stop doing stuff like this. Your experimental content too much fun
its fun to make, keep the ideas coming and ill keep creating them
@@MajorHardware What about the fortex gen with the dimples on a curved blade fan ?
but make sure, the vortex gens are on the END of the blades, not on the beginning like u did last time (the evo's vortex gens are not on the beginning of the roof, but they are at the end of it), and maybe on the other side which contacts with the air.
Many years ago at Bristol University I was involved with hydraulic tests on tubes with golf size dimples, these demonstrated that boundary layer friction was drastically reduced. Size of dimple to velocity is the key here.
true. and this is only one of many factors to consider. this case is so complicated that to reliably test whether dimples TRULY have any benefit/downside, it would take more than a mere 15 minute video. and it would take FAR more effort.
this is why this video is pretty much pointless besides entertainment purposes. nothing reliable can be learned from this video.
Hello Craig!
What's the realation between dimple size and air speed? Does it depend on the speed, more than on the size of the actual object in which you want to reduce the drag?
Thanks, regards!
Part of the motor driver is speed regulation. So of course they are the same RPM.
If a fan is too heavy or very inefficient it will overpower the motor at some point and stop it from reaching its preferred rpm.
Hey look everyone a guy who knows more about this then the RUclipsr who actually does this shit.
@@youngputter239 I mean I'm hardly convinced that this guy knows more than the youtuber. I thought the motors mostly output the same wattage how fast that spins depends on the fan. Why should I believe that this motor has some feature that makes it always spin the same rpm no matter what's attached. Surely the youtuber/engineer would be aware if that was the case
@@monhi64 Mostly because that saves BIOS work when regulating fan speeds. If it didn't have a preset static speed, changing the speed of the fan through the BIOS would require constant updates and adjustments. Making it built-in to the fan itself would show up as a change in current draw or voltage as the fan would handle the speed set once by the BIOS.
I realize this wasn't in a PC, but if the fan was designed to go in a PC, having a fan that you could set a defined speed on allowing it to vary the current/voltage would be a huge benefit to the BIOS. Kind of set it and forget it. Meaning this may be the standard for this kind of fan.
The real test should have been to attach the fan to a motherboard that allows incremental changes in fan speed. Create a table and plot the voltage per RPM and see if there is a difference. A significant difference in current/voltage may indicate a more efficient fan design though the RPM stayed the same.
I'm not saying this is a fact, just that it makes a lot of sense.
@@Jaseinatl ok I kinda understand what your saying. So one thing that doesnt make sense is like what's the supposed point of the dimples. Do they blow more wind? Like if they pushed more air they would have a higher air resistance and it would make the motor work harder to spin it. So its making more wind still at the cost of more energy. Why not just make the fan spin faster that is also more energy. But idk maybe one would require less extra energy. I dont think you necessarily want the fan that can turn with the least air resistance and that would mean it blows less air but idk I'm sure someone knows the answer to that question lol
Recommendations from an engineer in automotive design: learn how to design airfoils, is not that hard, look for blades that are thinner (smaller cross sectional area) towards the center and higher cross sectional area towards the edge, the angle of attack must be higher towards the center than towards the edge
I saw him talking about MAC and some other airfoil characteristics in another video. Im pretty sure he knows what hes doing.
Dude as a mechanical engineering student. It's not as easy as you make it sound lol. A lot of calculations if you are gonna design your own.
Usman Saleem designing airfoils are not that hard, it’s hard to optimize them, but just designing them in cad isnt
Aerospace engineer here and can confirm.
Based on your knowledge, should the dimples help with a different design?
Am I the only one bothered that instead of doing a continuous hexagonal pattern he chose to space out circles
No, you are not the only one...
First thing I noticed when he put it next to an actual gold ball.
It is a sad face for me, as well. Also, would the dimples being on the other side make any difference?
Am I the only one bothered that a fan blade is totally different from a golf ball
My OCD caught that too lol
All this complicated dimple mumbo jumbo and you missed the simplest, easiest, most well known scientific fact of making things go faster.
Just add flame decals!
Red go fastah!!
Oooh! Flame shaped dimples!!!
Splort Ha ha you thought this self promoting youtube "Influencer" was a genius, really, REALY!
Wins the comments section.
@@brentobrento9471 In this generation for more speed you need RGB. More power, more frames, more everything. RGB.
10% materials savings would add up in a mass production line when cranking out tens of thousands of these. Was the print time the same? Any strength gained from the dimple pattern? You’ve proved the dimples don’t have any effect - which might be a GREAT thing if their other properties have benefits (less weight, less material, etc). Perhaps this can be scalable to windmills, where material cost along with a 10% weight reduction would matter a LOT.
Fascinating
Generally you don't want your wing to delaminate the airflow...
If you do wind up saving a little on manufacturing, sure, that's one thing, but a more complex design, depending on the manufacturing process, it might be more costly versus the saved material. As in taking longer, so you can only push 95% the amount as before, and materials were only 5% of the cost to begin with... you lose 5% of sales to save... 0.5% of your costs...
Dimples would actually require more material to get the same rigidity, current fan blades are thin enough that removing the material for dimples would compromise the structure
Yeah actually thats a big one to major production material cost etc so yeah major benefit seeing as there is no loss also could be awesome new design that companies would invest in and buy the patient.
MythBusters added Dimples to a Car ( The Entire Body of the Car ) and according to them it actually got a lot better Gas Mileage.
I saw that done to a car at ''The Tron'' Edinburgh in 1980 - way before Mythbusters. Some visitor left his car (illegally) parked overnight, without knowing about the new year's eve party - where it got comprehensively danced upon by 5000 revellers. I saw the poor guy getting a drubbing from his wife as they were picking it up the next morning. Still the funniest fly-on-the-wall story I have.
I emailed McLaren Mercedes F1 around 10 years ago to try this.
@@Flat-White Not allowed.
so maybe the dimpled fan draws less current...
@@christianweiss4971 power out equals power in times efficiency factor. Standard blade is probably efficient enough that the difference is not noticible. It did sound a little bit softer, maybe for larger fans it could help reduce noise a little bit.
the fans are digitally controlled, measuring their rpm isnt relevant.
Yea the motor will spin at the same rate no matter what. Needs to be in a direct airflow tunnel and see what rate it would spin if only on a bearing
Measuring RPM would have been relevant if he was also measuring power draw/current
It does though
except he hooks it straight to a 12v line. Which you would know if you watched his other fan videos.
It's on its max power (meaning it's running on DC and not PWM), the weight and air resistance of the fan will affect the RPM.
This reminds me of the mythbusters where they added golf ball dimples to a car. It actually increased the milage quite a bit.
One of the unexpected best wins on the show.
And they used 350lbs of clay on the body of the car to make the dimples. Even with the weight the mileage went up by 3mpg if I remember .
@@steveogilvie1773 They adjusted for the weight of the clay (though not evenly distributed) with the control and the dimpled design did better than the control. If you don't know then don't say, people will often conflate assumptions with fact.
I parked my car on a driving range to get the dimples for fuel savings. After spending $2000 replacing the windows, I'm proud to say I save $0.50 every week on gas. It will only take 4000 weeks to break even.
@@WhateverMan35 well, congratulations you win biggest flex on mythbusters trivia...i bet you were the best 12-year old “scientist”
@@toddmulligan2609 #Did someone piss in your cornflakes or something?
the reason dimples help golf balls is they help the air cling around the curve of the golf ball so it doesn't drag a mass of air behind it the back side of the ball. that isn't going on with a fan blade.
There actually was a popular dimple-bladed fan in the early 2000s: The Sharkoon Silent Eagle.
I run these in my current system. I don't know if the dimples actually do anything, but they are great fans and incredibly silent.
Back when even fans had catchy and meaningful names haha
Yes, was about to say this. I have a white one and a clear one and they are indeed very quiet. They came with little rubber thingies instead of screws so to dampen sound even more.
@@enquiryplay Same here - and they've recently ticked past 10 years old.
Yeah, My old gaming PC had those.
One thing that I would really be interested to know is whether (or how much) two counter rotating fans improve performance compared to e.g. two stacked fans rotating in the same direction. In theory the second fan will (as well as adding more energy) remove some of the turbulence in the air stream created by the first fan, thus increasing flow velocity.
This approach is not really common in PC building, so a perfect test scenario for you ;-)
The second fan needs an unusual blade design, basically inverted, but optimized rotors can look quite crazy.
Keep up the great work!
@@Wereskeleton I bet it does! How is the noise though? Server grade cooling is often quite loud.
Theres been quite a few turbo prop planes that used counter rotating props to achieve faster speeds. They're also unbelievably loud.
Would be quite interesting.
It has been done and in fact, he's made a video on it. Check out the Scythe fan videos!
@@ViperDent Thanks for pointing that out! The difference with the scythe cooler is that both fans are separated by a set of fins, which will have already straightened out the airflow once the air hits the second fan. So i think there still would be something to learn by placing two fans back-to-back, creating a true counter rotating fan setup.
there are helicopters with rotor blades that are counter rotating so that they conserve angular momentum without needing a rotor on the tail end.
where the fan showdown began !
Where's my fan with built in whistle cuts? I need something that plays a different pitch on each blade. Ideally, it needs to play ominous music when it starts running too slow. This is a totally practical item, which has much demand. I swear.
I want to see that!
I would buy something like that if it was fully functional. I.e the whistling wasnt extremely loud and or high pitched, almost like background music would be; you know its there but its not completely distracting
@Siler, but the distraction is all that matters! Don't you want panicking siren noises when you're running across the battlefield in 4k?
@@thelocalcoma No because I generally listen to music or have youtube running on my second monitor while Im gaming lol
@@silervanguard1998 Pssssh. You're doing this wrong bro. That's what industrial grade acoustic foam is for. Just isolate your speakers and set up a whisper line for the fans
I'd like to see you test the resistance on the 12v rail from the fan! (or just how many amps it's pulling to the fan)
Maybe it would take more power but can reach the same speed sometimes
Your testing is very cool!
- My god, I have so much work to do... wait, a fan with dimples I NEED to see this first
A trick my teacher did when he needed to weight things using a scale that could not go low enough was to add known weight to it.
Yup. Thats how some vets weigh lazy or large baby animals. First take their own weight and then carry the animal in their arms onto the scales. There are some pretty damn cute animal vids of it out there. The dood carrying a baby giraffe is cute.
@@markky3050 That's how I weighed my dog and cat.
Yeah I was thinking about the weight difference too. Kinda like how the tested the demples on “Mythbusters”
As long as the scale is actually sensitive enough to measure that low of a difference in weight but just not that low of a weight overall. A lot of scales cut out at a minimum because it's less than their sensitivity, e.g., a scale that weighs down to tenth of a gram won't be able to accurately weigh anything less than that no matter how much extra weight you put on it.
@@Goodboy77717 Oh yeah, that's a good point. I hadn't thought about comparing to known weights.
13:26 Answer to the video title.
Thank you.
Thank you.. How the heck is this dragged to 12 minutes.
Thanks Man
I hate comments like this, the conclusion is worthless without the build-up and details
@@TwelveCrows I clicked on the video because I was interested in the video title, I did watch the video though, and didn't really think it was worth sitting through it for the answer.
Check these:
* Enegry savings
* Sound level
Compare with different speed.
the dimples on golf balls reduces drag, wouldnt that be BAD for performance?
mythbusters did a car with golf ball dimples and it got better mpg lol
the opposite, if you had a fan with 0 drag, it would be the perfect fan since all it would fight against would be "deflection"! drag only makes the fan spin slower while deflection makes the fan spin slower but pushes the air out. lack of drag will not stop it from scooping air and deflecting it.
Am I the only one who knows that pc fans with golf ball dimples on the blades already exist?
@@sinformant Silverstone has some. Really quiet fans
@@ayuchanayuko yeah I know. My old power supply has one in it. Ypu can't tell the fan is tutning without looking at it. "0" noise
*km/L Becuz UPIC STANDARDS
This dude is basically like a mad scientist at this point.
He's out of control. He needs to stopped. And I love it.
First time here, left wondering about where you could go from here.
1. A golf balls dimples are actually a recessed hexagon, not round and they work only when the golf ball actually rotates in the air moving the air around the golf ball in a separate layer affecting drag.On the fan the dimples have no such obvious ability .
2. If the Dimples can not duplicate the golf balls air flow - moving air from high pressure area at the front to the low pressure area at the rear in a separate layer, then what other benefits could they offer or problems they could cause??
3. Some possible measurables;
- Is the fan quieter or noisier (Decibels)
- Do dimples affect the quantity of air being moved (cubic feet/minute)
- Is the same or better air flow created for a lower power consumption, how many watts to move x cubic feet/minute
- Is there Particulate adhesion to the fan blades, does dust accumulate more or less with dimples thus affecting the efficiency over time
- You have shown that there is a 10% reduction in material required to manufacture, this could be a significant saving if you manufacture in the 100k's or they are used in space where a gram costs $2 to orbit so 12,000 starlink satellites (approved) saving 1 gram each is a $24,000 saving. Every gram counts.
- If you ensure all the dimples on the fan are complete and none are cut off at the edges, does this affect any of these measureables. Maybe incomplete dimples at the edges degrade the fans performance.
These are just a few ideas on what you could test for - if a jobs worth doing a YT vid on it, then science the _if you see Kay_ out of it.
Dimples are cute, so they've got that going for them, which is nice.
It would be interesting to see if the pattern of the airflow is changing any when you do these experiments. Maybe throw some sorta smoke or fog at it👍
A small laminar airflow cabinet would be great for some smoke studies
Or do a CFD study
Pulled more design in 3 minutes then I have done in 4 years. Not sure how I ended up here but glad i did
“In real measurements “ you have no idea as an Englishman how happy that sentence makes me feel 😂 . The sooner we stop using inches the better ha ha
You guys still use imperial and British measurements though. Also that standard came from your country.
Your "real" measurements are only smarter and better in a decimal system. I can evenly divide a foot by 3 equaling 4 inches. Hours are divided in to 60 minutes instead of 100 because the ancient Sumerians realized 8000 years before the British that 1/3 measurements break decimal based systems. Anyone trying to have an intellectual discussion about technical things should be smart enough to convert inches to metric and back again, otherwise you are just dumbing this down for the rest of us, good job.
@@willchristian5954 The simple fact is that both systems are good at what they do, but there is no universal system that does all of it equally well. Anyone who loves one and hates the other is simply someone who can't do a basic conversion when necessary and can't understand why there's more than one system. That goes for both sides of the argument. It's like saying "It's stupid that we have to speak French in France just to eat at McDonalds, let's make it mandatory for the entire world to only speak English because arbitrary reasons". No dumbass, learn French or get a translator...French has worked great for them since before English even existed.
@@Skinflaps_Meatslapper I think you and I are arguing the same side. I was not saying the metric system is stupid, I'm not that dumb. I was merely partaking a favored pastime of mocking people who are so ignorant they place absolute faith in the infallibility of something that is demonstrably flawed. I am blessed that most the inhabitants of the isle of Whales cant help but do this with the metric system, oh teh lulz.
The scalability of the metric system is vital in helping our minds relate our world to the vastly huge and tiny worlds of astrophysics and quantum physics respectively. Simple naives expound its absolute superiority not because this is fact, but because it is easier for a dullard, and to a dullard easier is always superior. Doing commerce in a 120 base system instead of 100 would streamline the entire market by freeing people to buys/sell/negotiate in quantities of 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5, 1/6, 1/10, 1/12 and on without creating decimals and thus having to use change, while base 10 creates change at all intervals of 3, and lots of intervals of 4. Time is probably the most fun with numbers in a non base 10 system. is 1/3 of an hour 33.3333 to infinity? No, it is 20 minutes even. Time is elegant and really hard to explain the brilliance behind it. 4 is the lowest non prime multiple of 2, and 6 is the lowest non prime multiple of 3 and a multiple of 2. That's why we don't refer to time in decimals, it only makes decimals when we really try. But using the system we use for time in quantum physics would be painfully difficult.
I want to apologize to Major Hardware for spamming this vid. I moved across the county during COVID so I really appreciate and outlet to talk about smart $#!7 with competent people. Thanks all.
Well, we don't use Imperial. We use American Customary Units, but semantics aside, they are near identical. Metric makes sense to me for precise measurements. Which I love.
And I use American Customary for cutting wood. I have an old home and of course it is all American Customary, so I must measure accordingly.
In USA we have been slowly integrating Metric measurements onto products since the 1970's - such as on liquid containers. The best example is everyone's familiarity with 2 Liter sodas, lol.
I just purchased my first 3D printer. I know nothing about CAD, but between your channel, and seeing Superman learn to build a computer, I am ready to learn something new again. (Subscribed!)
Solidworks is nice but takes some getting used too because it is more designed to build something from a drawing vs fusion which is more organic. I use Solidworks mostly because I find it easier to add things like fillets or make assemblies.
Knock em dead, Matt!
PCs are dead simple to build. literally everything fits in a socket. the hardest thing is troubleshooting and most of that can be googled.
Jetah they’re easy until you’re told to troubleshoot with a known working part and have to go buy a *second* PSU, then a *second* motherboard, then a *second* GPU, and then you’re told to try a known working CPU which you absolutely can’t afford yet so you’re stuck out of cash and shit out of luck.
Jetah yes, PC’s are easy to build for anyone who is already experienced in doing so. The correlation between my statement is that Henry Cavill is an actor, and not a PC builder. He’s more familiar with acting than he is with building a PC. I’m a PC tech, and have been building PC’s for over the past 2 decades. Therefore, I am more familiar with PC’s and how they work vs building and using a 3D printer.
Yes, In this day and age Google exists, and can be a great tool to use for research. However, like Henry Cavill, I took the time to RTFM, and build it. It’s a bit more rewarding that way.
Carry on! :-)
You didny measure air flow volume or current draw. (was it a speed controled motor?)
The reason golf balls go farther when dimpled is supposedly due to a thin layer of air "sticking" to the ball in flight, which reduces the size of the low pressure zone behind the ball by smoothing out the airflow around the ball. At least that's the theory I've seen used to explain it several times. So the effect I would expect dimpled fan blades to produce would be reduced turbulence in the air being moved and perhaps less tendency to create drag inducing vortices at the ends of the blades, assuming those vortices are even an issue in a ducted fan. As others have pointed out, the fan is most likely designed to spin at a fixed rpm anyway, so even if drag is reduced by the dimples it's not going to result in the fan spinning faster. You could try the experiment using an unregulated DC motor, making sure the voltage stays consistent...
What might be an interesting experiment though, would be to print two identical propellers except for the dimples on one of them and find out whether smoother airflow due to dimples produces any measurable difference in the amount of lift the prop generates at the same RPM, or if given the same voltage and propeller RPM less current is drawn due to reduced drag. Hehe, my curiosity about this may be just the excuse I needed to buy myself the 3d printer I've been coveting for a while now, so thanks! I'll just conveniently ignore the fact that I'm sure I'm not the first to think of this, and that every propeller and probably turbine blade made would be dimpled if any significant benefits were to be realized. 😉
Measuring how much power is drawn is a great idea.
A smooth ball generates laminar flow as it flies through the air, this lamination of air creates a pocket of low pressure behind the ball, a vacuum drag of you will. Those dimples work to generate turbulent flow and rid the ball of its low pressure zone, ever so slightly increasing wind resistance while lessening the effect of virtual drag, allowing the ball to travel further as well as straighter. I may have used a few layman terms, but the information is nonetheless correct.
Fan blades with a pitch naturally create that slight trailing vacuum which also translates to lift for an airfoil. Adding dimples to the pitched fan blade plane is not likely going to cancel the trailing vacuum effect which is a part of the nuance of why fans work. If your not trying to make lift or kinetic air flow and just want an object to move through a fluid more easily sometimes adding a little turbulence strategically will help.
someone watches SmarterEveryday lol
@@dp1313-m3r Graduated 5 years ago, gotta keep the ol' brain in shape lol
Is this the Coanda Effect yes?
The dimple fans definitely add a scratchy sound to the wind. Had my eyes closed when you played them instantly able to hear the difference.
They're speed controlled bro 😆
Same speed was to be expected. It’s direct drive and as long as the drag does not increase like crazy the motor will just run its designed rom.
Why not measure sound differences. Is the dimplenfan quiter or vv?
it is funny that this is the originating video or your fan comp. love how it started.
Couldn't you have curved the blades after getting all the dimples on them and let the program deal with the transformation of the dimples along the curves?
I love these videos, it really scratches my tinkering itch. It's so cool.
also, do you plan on making curved blades with dimples too?
i could, there is a flex function in solidworks that i could use
@@MajorHardware would really like to see curved blades with dimples given that might adjust things somewhat. And then maybe aerofoil curved blades.
@@MajorHardware that'd be pretty sweet :D Would it be possible to design something that's like a dyson?
Hey dude awesome video!
just a note from my observance i'd say golf balls have more hexagonal dimples than spherical. i wonder whether that would make a vast difference as would a curved blade combo.
Just sharing thoughts.
Thanks for inspiring a thought process
Even though this experiment was a bit of a dud, I want to compliment you on your B roll this video. It was top notch plus tax!
watching this i realize my evga gpu said something on it about the E's on the fan. they said it helps but not sure. pretty sure it would be the same as with dimples tho.
Yeah I wondered about the EVGA 'E" Blades & what effect they have
@@shaneeslickOther techtubers have measured: no real difference.
I see literally no way that could help other than EVGA getting to put their branding in more places lol
e for extra loud! my G3 is so noisy when it cranks up
00:50 in... as a 3D hobbyist, i'd use the vertices on a low-poly proxy version of the blades to locate spheres (or deformed spheres to get a more shallow dimple) on the surface of each fan blade at each vertex, and boolean subtract them from the high-poly blades leading surface...
You should make your own fan and sell it. I feel you have done all the R&D :)
You can buy these already, my dad built a first gen i7 at the time with these. They were marketed as very quiet
I don’t know how or why I ended up here but I’m gonna watch some more for sure! Good video
this was to simple of a design, to create and advance the design of dimples on golf balls they created better and better designs over several decades. adding generic dimples may not give measurable differences. if the wright brothers tried one thing and it didnt work, we might not have planes now. they continued small changes til it flew.
1: golf ball dimples are hexagons (spacing should also be measured)
2: they are not just offset but cross into the lines of other dimples
3: should have entire surface of the fan (this includes the cylindrical base)
4: try a curved profile for the blade and not a flat angle
5: make sure you are not using a fan that is limited to a rotational speed. 1880 might be its general upper end (for the supplied power) maybe try some more extreme speed fan motors. as they may be more of a weight limited motor in this series of tests.
6: also try a higher blade count and the same blade count as this test.
7: try 3 variants, for example... just dimpled on top side, just down side, and on both sides of blades to test if there is a difference among them.
+1 i think this is the biggest difference to the golf ball:
4: try a curved profile for the blade and not a flat angle
Sick
this won't matter, nothing you can do to the dimples or the fan can make them work better because the reason dimples affect golf balls and not fans is that when an object moves through the air, it creates a low-pressure area behind it, creating drag and slowing down the body, because of this, a teardrop shape is the best shape for limiting drag since its outline follows the low-pressure area allowing it to negate the effect almost entirely. the golf ball on the other hand is made to be sphericle to allow for non-directional hits, and therefore must be designed to minimize drag some other way.
this leads us to the dimples, and how they reduce drag. they do it by creating turbulence on the surface of the sphere, which creates vortexes swirling into the low-pressure zone behind the sphere, allowing air to fill the low-pressure zone more quickly, and lessening the effects of drag.
now, the reason this effect doesn't work on the fan is that its shape is significantly better aerodynamically starting off, as its blades do not generate low-pressure the same way the sphere does, since they are already thin, and don't require air to bend its path nearly as much in order to pass around it.
@@TwelveCrows the point was its just simply to general of a design to just put small impressions into something and call it "dimpled like a golf ball"
@@brettleisy356 I understand that, however, the WRITTEN conclusion, is that this design could give a more pronounced positive effect if advanced further, and used on more advanced fan designs, which is simply untrue. the dimples on a golf ball give an aerodynamic-enhancement only because they reduce the size of the low-pressure zone behind the ball, whereas, on a fan, they create turbulence which re-directs the air out of the fan, limiting its theoretical maximum efficiency, and ruining it's design.
My parents: I hope he's doing his homework.
Me: *listening to golf dimpled fans"
He was hise instead?
Well, you can always claim it was an educational video about practical application of fluid-dynamics for physics class xD
,aerodynamics?
@@plusxz821 Yeah, you're right ;D
You should make a resin print for the dimples fan blade. You'll get a better flow. Any kind of lines from the print layers are problematic. Also, the dimples should be only on the low pressure side. They essentially disrupt the low pressure air so it doesn't fold back on itself. Im pretty sure you want as smooth as you can get on the high pressure side.
Whale tail has a wave pattern on the trailing edge to supposedly remix water better with less drag.
Mosquito needle is serrated to go in with less feeling, they are looking at making hospital needles the same way.
Shrug just some ideas.
Nature has already figured out the best way. It only took 20K generations of trial & error. Biomimicary is where it's at.
I'm sure Silverstone did a series of fans with dimples in.
Got one in my FT02 case from back in the day but can't find what fan it is exactly
Other fan producers did the same, I have some high static pressure fans and they have dimples.
Sharkoon made fans like this
If I was a fan manufacturer and had seen this, the reason why it is interesting is not because it performs better, but because as you pointed out, it weighs less. Only 1 gram less in a 12 gram object, but that is a weight reduction of around 8%.
That would translate to a material reduction of 8% per blade, which is a substantial amount when factored into cost saving. I think that would translate as something for manufacturers to look at, and since I bet the plastic blades are injection molded, simply forming a new die with dimples similar to these would save these manufacturers a large amount of money.
"Depth of 0.01 inches, which in REAL measurements is..."
I love it. I am stealing that. Whenever I have to convert from imperial to metric, I'm going to use that.
You'd just love the world of woodwind mouthpiece production.
The gap between the reed and the tip is measured in inches, like .065".
The length of the curve from the flat part to that opening is measured in units of _half a millimeter!_ That is, a measurement of 46 would mean 23 mm.
And then the way of describing the volume of the interior is proprietary to each manufacturer.
one MAJOR overlooked factor - printed dimples have smooth rim corners, pressed [like a golf ball] have sharp ones... CRUCIAL!!!
On that angle of attack it wont change a thing anyway. The dimples have almost 0 airflow going threw them
What If Fan Blades Had Dimples Like A Golf Ball? A Question you never ever realised that you SERIOUSLY needed the answer to !!! Enjoying discovering your vids. Keep up the pleasant obsession.
I knew you were a smart man when you said that you hated the imperial system
metric: that screw is 10mm long
Imperial: that screw is 7/64 inch long
which is simpler
@c6amp 5280 is correct
did you not watch the video where he typed in 3.9878mm?
wow. so much easier!
you'll realize once you grow up that the metric system is just as arbitrary as imperial. The world is not a perfect place. Science doesn't obey laws of 10x and neither do any measurements.
Imperial is better when cooking tho as that's what everyone used
lol, this video shows how much people have a complete misunderstanding on how fluid dynamics works. they try to glue pieces of information together and end up with totally wrong ideas.
The dimples you put there are doing nothing to the air flow, because there is no air flow where they stand, just a void (or low pressure). Your blades have to much angle of attack and so the air flow detaches immediately past the leading edge. Also, the dimples need to be near or just past the leading edge where there is still air compression, which they are not. Also the dimples work favorably in a window of air speed, which will determine the size and depth of the dimple. Just copying an average value on wikipedia does not cut. this is exactly the type of engineering you see for example in some cycling wheels manufacturer, and its utterly BS...
if you wanna improve you fan blades you need to round them in order to create a gradient of angle of attack (less angle past the leading edge). Only then you will be able to play with turbulent boundary layers (which is what dimples try to achieve) but you will have to use different methods then dimples. I think it was fractal design who tried to explore this concept on some of their fans, dont know how effective it worked, but the theory behind it seems right.
I was watching this to see what dimples do for golf balls not to make better fan blades, so kind of a different eye looking at this. Want a more efficient mover of air use a propeller (airfoil). I didn't learn what I wanted to when I clicked on the video. "Do dimples make a golf ball fly further"? If so, I assumed the dimples on the fan blades would have them moving less air (Drag). His summation at the end is very problematic. "Dimples make golf balls fly farther... but don't affect fan blades". The suggestion is that ONE object covered in dimples is greatly affected... And another is not".
this dude is insane; he can do CAD and he is dumb as hell. i have never studied fluid dynamics, but it makes me angry how studpid he is, common sense (children) can see taht his blades are wrong... but he get 1mio clicks and even though his results are meaningless he gets positive clicks. he even earned more money than it costed him... by spreading nonsense.
now aged 8, among the first things i learnt was, that my deeds affect my sourrounding and also people around me. and i have responsibility.
he couldnt keep up with that and therefore is less mature than some people who learn that aged 8 ... or 7 or 9 ....
I have never studied fluid dynamics or aerodynamics though I was thinking along the same lines. The overall diameter of the golf ball and the dimple size and the speed of travel and the direction and speed of rotation of the golf ball are all important factors that have the be balanced for there can be any positive effect. Plus, in sports even a 1% improvement in distance or stability is considered significant; but it would not be significant for something like cooling of a CPU. And, golf ball dimples don't actually look round to me, more like rounded corner hexagons. This must have some effect due to the the overall pattern of dimples on a golf ball not being entirely hexagonal. And lastly, the golf association as regulated the maximum distance the ball can travel when launched form test equipment, so if someone had engineered a better dimpling pattern or geometry they would not be usable in golf balls and therefore not a very good basis to start from for anything other than a school science fair project. That all being said, if the goal is for a middle school science fair project, then you probably got a B grade. Not bad, considering discoveries like Mpemba's are exceptionally rare.
@@russellnotestine6436 I commented on the video as well, but you might never see my comment. I decided to write your a reply directly because of common interest. Golf ball dimples work because of ball spin. When you strike the ball well, even with a driver, there is backspin. This causes the bottom of the ball to travel forward at a greater velocity than the top of the ball (Oversimplified math used only as an example: if the ball had a 1" circumference and struck at 1 inch per second (and no gravity to interfere with linear progression. If the rotation of the 1" ball was 1 rotation per second the ball's mass would rotate around the direction of travel it progressed. wobbling through the air. This is because the top of the ball would always be stationary while the bottom of the ball was moving at a total speed of 2" per second, and rotating around the top of the ball.) The ball would have linear progression, but only that every rotation of the ball would give a new "top" to rotate around, but the "top" would always be stationary.
This speed differential is why golf balls are dimpled. if the bottom of the ball has faster linear progression speed than the top of the ball, the bottom of the ball creates lift. Have you ever watched a well struck drive travel off a the club face, then suddenly rise into the air? That is the lift from the dimples. It is also why a poorly struck golf ball travels 100 yards off a driver and suddenly turns hard right (slice) or left (hook). Also why right handed hitters typically hit slices and left handed players typically hit hooks. It all depends on how the ball spins off the club face.
Hope this helps. I was a golf course superintendent for nearly 30 years, have worked in academics, and love science channels on youtube. This is my first video from this youtuber, I might give him another chance or two, but was very disappointed in his understanding of science from this video and don't expect much from him.
Yeah anyone that's ever been serious about playing golf knows he went into this with the wrong idea of how dimples work.
I'm sure someone has already said this but the dimples on a golfball is to catch air and create lift. It shifts the low pressure from behind the ball which would slow it down to under the ball, creating lift. A fan blade that pushes air is opposite of what you want, however if it was a fan that catches air like a wind turbine there would likely be a benefit.
Strange i just realised my pc fans have all ready got these dimples.?thanks for pointting this out.
Racer's Edge; Air Racer trick was to run an aerodynamic propeller spinner until they were banned in competition due to their propensity to leave the formation and go through someone's windscreen. Overcoming the high drag at the root of the prop blades where a Hamilton Standard transitions from a round tube shape into the narrow airfoil shape is now accomplished by random dimpling of the round hub end. FAA rules only allow this modification on Experimental certification aircraft. The dimpled surface acts to turbulate the air flow of the aerodynamically inefficient prop hub to blade transition. Although a totally different principle, you might think of it being similar to the area rule principle (Coke bottle shape) that allows supersonic wings to transition into the fuselage with less drag. Now that I have shared this secret with you, you are sworn to secrecy not to tell anyone.
Golf ball dimples are there because they cause some turbulence that helps the ball cut through the air better. Because the ball is rotating on all three axes as it flies, the dimples cause what's known as a turbulent flow that causes more initial drag, but actually reduces drag on shapes such as spheres. The fan blades work differently than a golf ball, so the turbulent flow from the dimples won't necessarily affect the speed at which the fan rotates, but should have a negative effect on the amount of air moved by the fan as the turbulent flow will reduce the speed at which the air moves past the fan blades.
Idk why i keep watching this videos... i dont even own a pc... but it is interesting...
Adelhard Schwarz that’s the spirit 🌚
🤔 Deep Down you are a Fan Fan
Eventually he should be making the phone USB charger cooling pad
I know we all already know this, but I just love doing this just to prove how stupid imperial measurement is:
Metric
1Mm = 1,000km
1km = 1000m
1m = 1000mm
1mm = 1000µm
Etcetera. No one really uses decimetres, decametres or hectometres, but everything fits into neat powers of 10 for easy conversion, and has proper names up to +/- 24 orders of magnitude.
Imperial
1 league = 3 miles
1 mile = 8 furlongs
1 furlong = 10 chains
1 chain = 22 yards
1 yard = 3 feet
1 foot = 12 inches
1 inch = 1000 thou.
There are more, like barley seeds, links, rods, fathoms, cables, etc... But I think they were phased out long ago. I never hear furlongs, chains or leagues used, so you get ridiculous jumps in conversion like 1 mile = 5280 feet. In what world is does this make it easy to convert units?!
QUICK! Convert 3.14 miles to feet without a calculator!!....... Exactly. 16,579.2 feet. Oh wait, imperial hates decimal, so 16,579 feet, 2 and ~13/32 inches.
I do like how the factions are in base 2 though (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, etc), that's neat.
QUICK! Convert 3.14 km to metres without a calculator!!..... 3,140m? Wow! How simple!
Sorry for the rant lmao
. Decent fan design, though a curved blade might help the dimples make an impact... Though I'm not sure ;)
Edit: Imperial made me overthink 3.14 x 1000 lmao.
rant approved
Just in conversion to metres from km you forgot a zero (3140m) :)
You mean 3140 m? =D
@@RadanValenta and Tonton, you're both absolutely right. I was so flustered from whipping up stupid imperial calculations that I forgot how to do simple maths lmao
Imperial was invented by the Romans who created an extremely practical system. Everything is based on common items that everyone has in order to make estimating easy. Precision is worthless in everyday life anyway. Do you tell someone the gas station is 7.15km east or 7km east? It literally does not matter because your number was close enough. As for what they mean, if you measure your foot you'll find that it's roughly a foot. If you walk 1000 paces you'll find you've walked roughly a mile. Either way there's no realistic situation where you have to convert units anyway, so the entire unit conversion thing is moot. How many objects are you measuring that are 1m on one edge and 1km on the other? What are you gonna travel 50m in your car? There's virtually no cross-over in which you'd need to convert units. The only time it's useful at all is fairly small units, like mm to cm, but I mean your measuring device will likely be labeled sufficiently that it does the work for you, or you could just stay in mm. Why bother using 30cm when 300mm works just the same? It's not like you've got to count them and you'll save hours by using 30 instead of 300, just look at the number on your measuring device. It's not even better for dividing. Say your house is 15.73m wide and you want to divide it evenly into quarters. Guess what you need? Either math skills or a calculator, no different than imperial.
Have you thought about doing a scalloped sawtooth pattern on the trailing edge? This reduces drag and noise while improving flow through turbulence reduction. This is mimicking an owl’s wing and is being used in things like formula 1 and aerodynamic bicycles. They want to use it on wind turbine blades, but the forces on the blades are currently too high - which shouldn't be a problem in your small fan blades.
Another idea to improve flow and reduce vortices and noise would be to stack thinner fan blades over each other as with formula 1 front and rear wings. You may need to include pillars to support the tips and you could even add bunny ears off the tops of the pillared section to further increase efficiency and flow.
Screw the golf dimples bro, i wamma see that build vid of your brand new hardline PC behind you :o looks great
I closed my eyes when you did the sound test so I wasn’t effected by knowing when the change occurred, and had to open them to see if you’d actually changed them, I would say that’s no difference noticed 😅
Really? That's pretty interesting I did the same and noticed a difference, it wasn't really a volume change but more of a slightly different noise. I found the Dimple fan to have a sort of playing card in a bike wheel sound but it was really tiny while the regular fan was a steadier humm.
Alexz Pinnell and much like people ‘discussing’ the better sound quality of lossless over lossy, everyone will hear something differentx
@@almostanengineer Yah it's interesting, tho I have no idea what lossless or lossy are
Straight blades have a steady airflow sound the dimples actually added a slight frequency variation to it if you listen closely you can hear it every other second or so the pitch alters and it's like the frequency of the blades (or rpm) is changing which I didn't notice in the straight blades
The benefits may be not realized until a particular velocity of airflow across the dimples are reached, likely more than the fan can provide.
Sharkoon Silent Eagle fans have dimples
I wish I had the knowlege you do about solidworks, back in highschool I would've done so well xD
A golf ball has dimples to create turbulence around the spherical blunt body reducing pressure drag. A fan blade is not a blunt body and designed to take advantage of pressure drag creating a force normal to the blade usually called lift. This is an interesting experiment. Thanks for showing us the results and design steps.
The dimples in a golf ball reduce the drag of the ball . This is done by creating turbulence and this reduces the pressure difference drag. Here is a video explaining it ruclips.net/video/5zI9sG3pjVU/видео.html min 9.3 (if you can see it complet I recommend it.). If you see the video you would understand that dimples do not present a benefit in this case, because a fan works buy creating a pressure difference and it moves the air it doesn't pass through it (i'm not sure this is a correct explanation). I didn't expect it to perform as well.
Bro, I said the same thing. Dimples allow somehting to "cut" thru air with minimal resistance. If you are "cutting" thru air with ease, you are not going to MOVE as much air. The fan WITH DIMPLES IS GONG TO BE LESS EFFICIENT AT MOVING AIR.
I'm a researcher in AI, specialising in optimisation. I would be fascinated to see what type of fan blade an evolutionary algorithm would come out with.
think the problem is simulating the airflow well enough to get good results.
Indeed, as an aerospace engineer I would love to see the results of that.
I have worked evos for wing design and they come out very interesting. Although you needed access to a supercomputer for these types of high fidelity simulations.
Performance intake manifolds also have dimples in the pipes, the dimples create small vortaxes that reduce drag and speed up the airflow which is useful for goldballs and intake flow.
Dimples on a sphere has to do with disrupting boundary layer adhesion. Spheres are also capable of lift. On a fan blade you would think you would want adhesion and boundary layer flow. There would definitely be differences at turbine speeds.
"hate the Imperial system."
As a fellow member of the many MANY countries that use SI, I approve of this.
Yes I once had a recipe ask me to use half a cup and two and a half table spoons like come on just use metric already.
Thumb up on this vid only because of that line...
If you don't like imperial units move
@@eugeniusbear2297 I live in Finland, where should I move 😁😂
@@ssc00p somewhere where the use the metric system you lazy f'n bum
Next time, do a surface pattern and define the gap to your surface edges. (hex or staggered pattern - what you need)
Follow that by twisting the blade with a solid twist and then axial pattern the blade with all features.
Printing a curved fan blade in a PLA printer is hard. You need supports as the curve flattens out on the intake or the printing will be in the air and fail.
You could do the hub and individual blades printed vertically and glue them up together later.
Fan blades print best in SLA and you can lithograph up without support and just let the blades/hub hang.
Did my own fans blades for R&D test before sending to molding and manufacturing thousands.
Hope this helps. :)
you know how jet turbines have a section called the compressor where there are alternating spinning and stationary blades (fins). wonder what that would do for airflow if it were shrouded right?
The purpose of these compressors is to slow down airflow to generate higher static pressure at the intake of the engine.
The static blades are called airflow conditioners they pretty much make the direction of the air from one stage of the compressor to the next more appropriate. Technically on a cooling system you want to increase the mass flow of fluid through the radiator fins, and air flow conditioners wouldn’t be necessary for that but I also don’t think they would hurt much
Hypothesis: Fan blades move slower than a golf ball, so air friction isn't as big a component of total performance.
Good content! Super interesting to see you CAD the dimples. Keep up the good work!
Make a fan that floats on a magnetic bearing and see if it's any quieter than one with a standard bearing.
The dimple blade looks cooler tho..edit and gives a sparkle when spinning, more Bling factor if nothing else to consider
another note to take off is dimpled wall paper is used to collect condensation but they also have a bad hobbit of collecting dust/dirt in kitchens.
i actually could hear a difference in the sound of the dimpled vs non-dimpled blades.
How about a golden ratio lily impeller?
I heard it was the most efficient.
They'd prolly have to be tested in a turbo or jet engine to see any difference... But they're is a difference I bet. Just increase the size, number of blades, material construction and crank up the RPMs of course.
I suspect it will cause more turbulence within/between the blades and I think it will make the motor have to work harder.
The dimples are on the wrong side of the blade... They should be on the underside where the air is actually getting compressed.
Bro, I said the same thing. Dimples allow something to "cut" thru air with minimal resistance. If you are "cutting" thru air with ease, you are not going to MOVE as much air. The fan WITH DIMPLES IS GONG TO BE LESS EFFICIENT AT MOVING AIR. Unless they are done on one side of the blade. Good thinking!
10:40 nope - golf ball has HEXAGONAL pattern - your blades have big spaces between round dips with sharp edges..
Callaway created the HX ball with hexagonal dimples IUN 2002, which is marginally better. But most golf balls have spherical dimples, roughly .010" in depth with anywhere from 300-500 per ball depending on make and manufacture. DONT ALL CAPS WHEN YOU DONT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT, IT ANNOYS THE REST OF US.
first off the hexagonal appierance is an optical illusion, secondly, this won't matter, nothing you can do to the dimples or the fan can make them work better because the reason dimples affect golf balls and not fans is that when an object moves through the air, it creates a low-pressure area behind it, creating drag and slowing down the body, because of this, a teardrop shape is the best shape for limiting drag since its outline follows the low-pressure area allowing it to negate the effect almost entirely. the golf ball on the other hand is made to be sphericle to allow for non-directional hits, and therefore must be designed to minimize drag some other way.
this leads us to the dimples, and how they reduce drag. they do it by creating turbulence on the surface of the sphere, which creates vortexes swirling into the low-pressure zone behind the sphere, allowing air to fill the low-pressure zone more quickly, and lessening the effects of drag.
now, the reason this effect doesn't work on the fan is that its shape is significantly better aerodynamically starting off, as its blades do not generate low-pressure the same way the sphere does, since they are already thin, and don't require air to bend its path nearly as much in order to pass around it.
I saw it coming. The dimples are there to reduce drag due to the low pressure drag bubble behind a moving object. This allows things (golf balls and cars have been proven) to have less drag so they can travel farther, use less energy (e.g. fuel), or go faster.
The dimple blade's sound sounds lower than the smooth blade.
yeah, i noticed that too. came to the comment section to make sure i wasn't imagining it
Now I wonder if my friend with acne dimples has more aero than me.
if true meth could possibly make you more aerodynamic over time
and suddenly, from the deep blue of space comes... a video. thanks recommended.
OK, but, what about putting the "dimples" on the back side of the fan blades..?
🤔