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  • Hacker News
  • only fans?
    by caldis_chen
  • "Vercel Security Checkpoint"

    "enable javascript to continue"

    Bugger...

    by sylware
  • Noctua stays winning
    by mghackerlady
  • That’s so neat! I will be able to compare to my own CAD models from when I 3d printed my PC :D
    by dgellow
  • Mikrotik does this for some of their parts as well
    by jasiek
  • Good to know, didn't realize Mikrotik did this too. Useful for homelab planning where rack space and airflow actually matter.
    by kernalix7
  • The Fan Showdown YouTube guy is going to have a field day
    by swiftcoder
  • Especially because they previously denied his request for the files (even when they've sponsored him), stating the same IP issue.
    by russelg
  • How much more is the BOM for a silent fan like in Noctua? I recently bought a controller for my well water pump, and it has two 80mm fans for cooling. Sounds like an aircraft when taking off and doesn't seem to move much air. I'm planning to replace them with Noctua fans.
    by fy20
  • Well the cheapest crap fans are almost free, Noctua fans are certainly not free. So the added cost is the entire price of a Noctua fan.
    by KeplerBoy
  • You're not going to find a significantly quieter 80mm fan. It needs to be bigger so the blade passing frequency is in a less noticeable range.
    by throwaway85825
  • Probably best to look up the local prices yourself? We don't know where you live.

    There are fans that are cheaper that come close to noctua, but noctua are one of the best fans you can buy.

    by Mashimo
  • Meanwhile 3D printing is being banned in US states supposedly to prevent people from creating gun parts, because just buying a gun in the US isn't doable for a criminal. But in reality it's because ownership of production and machines is about to get banned for the lower classes.
    by emsign
  • recent scotus decision will make that much harder (not that lawmakers respect judicial decisions. but most firearm bills are overturned anyway).
    by richwater
  • Not just 3d printing, the proposed law applies to cnc too.
    by throwaway85825
  • Tweet with image: https://x.com/Noctua_at/status/2048688184314273947

    Example download: https://www.noctua.at/en/support/downloads?product=nf-a12x25...

    by embedding-shape
  • Would have saved me time on a 3D printer I designed a while back. I integrated Noctua fans and ended up measuring mounting dimensions by hand. Having the official CAD models would have made fan integration a lot cleaner.
    by kernalix7
  • I was just thinking the same! Spent few hours a month ago measuring 120mm noctua fans to build a custom mounting bracket for a rack cooling module I was making.

    Never finished it because I kept having to tweak and remeasure, but now I can definitely go back and finish it!

    by ikornaselur
  • Aren't their dimensions standard? Many people replace other fans with Noctua's, after all.
    by userbinator
  • > To protect our intellectual property, certain features – such as fan impeller geometries – have been slightly modified while remaining visually very close to the actual product.

    Noob question: If someone wants to copy their design with no respect to their intellectual property, can't they just 3D scan?

    by egeozcan
  • A copy-of-a-copy can lose a lot of detail. If you're good, people are going to clone you, but you might as well not do their work for them and filter out at least the lowest effort clones. Given the profit margins of a lot of these things the effort and skill required could make the whole cloning venture not worth it.
    by colechristensen
  • You really don’t need to 3d scan, I’m not a cad expert and it took me just a few evenings to replicate pretty much the blade profile of my Noctua fans based on photos
    by dgellow
  • Yes, though the fidelity offered by faithful CAD would be both easier to interpret correctly and might even hint at the CAD feature tree.

    Kudos to them for releasing models useful for integration.

    by zbrozek
  • I would think so, or by taking cross sections. Its hard to believe they have some miraculous geometry that needs guarding anyway. Maybe they are trying to dissuade people who might try to 3d print an impeller.

    3d models for industrial fan manufacturers (Sanyo,NMB) are widely available.

    by fecal_henge
  • Thermaltake already makes a clone:

    https://www.tomshardware.com/features/noctua-nf-a12x25-vs-to...

    Noctua seems fine so long as you’re not copying the color scheme and branding. Interestingly TT had a 140mm version before Noctua. Noctua seems happy being the premium option.

    by Moto7451
  • Unless they have patents on their fan impleller geomeries, the IP they're referring to is likely just trade secrets. Trade secrets do have legal protections in the US, but those protections are mainly about disclosing or stealing those secrets, not about physically inspecting something and deriving the trade secret that way.

    Not sure about the tech aspect of 3D scanning or if that would be accurate enough; I don't have any experience there to draw on.

    by kelnos
  • Unless they still have an unexpired patent on the design, it's completely legal to clone. Physical objects simply do not have the same type of copyright protection, and there is considerable precedent in making compatible components --- the most notable example being the automotive aftermarket.
    by userbinator
  • There is Fan Show Down on yt where people are trying to beat the original Noctua fan design:

    https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHLn2U7i45M_EXIsnqUyI...

    by srott
  • I'm disappointed that this is on YT, shouldn't it be on OnlyFans?
    by zozbot234