Fan in Axe-Fx III

[lqdsnddist]

Noctua is going to be wondering why they are suddenly moving all these FLX fans this month lol

 

[MatchFive]

I would like to think common sense and FAS's excellent customer service would prevail. I mean if you open the lid and spill coffee in there, then no, that isn't covered. If you thought it would fine without any fan, then no, that isn't covered. If you swap the fan for a fan of higher spec, and something unrelated fails like the LCD screen, then I would hope that is still covered.

Its like if I bought a new car, and I swapped the stock air filter for a higher performance K&N style, and then 6 months later my ABS brake system had an issue. I'd sure hope they still covered that repair under warranty. Now if I took the stock calipers off, put on some big 6 piston Brembo's, or something, then no, I don't think I can have a valid claim on the ABS system anymore, though who knows. If I changed the brakes and my exhaust system had an issue though seems like it should still be covered.

People can be pretty absurd with what is and isn't covered and why. When we bought our dog the breeder said he had a health guarantee, but ONLY if we feed him a specific food, and that food had to be specifically purchased from her.


World is a crazy place these days, but I think FAS is a stand up company and they aren't going to leave me high and dry if I my encoder knob doesn't work because I messed with the fan, that wouldn't be very good customer service now would it? I mean heck, if they tried to say my messing with the fan made the encoder knob defective I could claim back that they didn't have the original fan correctly installed in the first place, and that issue is what caused the delayed problem, right! lol

If your not comfortable, don't mess with things, its the best policy, but changing out a simple part like a fan, with a like for like fan, should not, IMO, be an issue. Soldering on or off parts, different ball game, but plug and play stuff should be cool.

You would hope this would be the case. I've been in the IT field for for the past 20 years, and have been building and fixing computers for way longer than that. I've done server and network work for Lockheed Martin and CSC to name a couple. I would be absolutely comfortable doing a fan swap, but I would be totally uncomfortable voiding the warranty.

 

[gigawatt]

I'd say bottom line is that if you want your warranty, I'd leave everything as-is, then after 1 year (unless you bought the extended) when the warranty is up, if you want to swap a fan etc, guess its fair game.

Again, all just pure speculation so I in now way speak for FAS, nor have I specifically heard anything from FAS on the matter.

Not like you'd be waiting another 3-4 months. They'd get it, open it up, loosen the nuts a little, and ship it right back. Only would take a few days, your not going to be told your going back to the end of the line.

Likewise, anything folk are getting these days shouldn't have that issue as I'd sure they've had a word with whomever tightened those nuts.

I thought I saw a post from Cliff about the warranty but I went through the thread and there isn't one. I guess you're just in my head lqdsnddist.

Likewise in this thread: I did not read the whole thing! Since my fan is super quiet. I only chimed in to mention what my friend did and offer a solution.

https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/how-loud-should-the-fan-be.137617/

And AlbertA rescues another thread, with another thread . Ya'll need to chill with all these fans...

 

[Ian Minogue-Corps]

I did LOL at a previous comment about someone being a Musician, so obviously not Deaf ! I’m assuming it was sarcasm as a lot of my fellow musicians are as deaf as posts with no top end left at all. It’s Occupational law that I have annual ear tests and because I always wore earplugs when gigging through the 80’s and 90’s , mine s still pretty good and that’s why Fan noise is akin to rubbing two bits of polystyrene together.

 

[gigawatt]

@Ian Minogue-Corps Who's the above post directed at?

 

[lqdsnddist]

Keep in mind noise induced hearing loss isn’t one size fits all. Some folks are more susceptible than others due to some genetic and other not fully understood factors.

It’s like sun exposure; how long is “safe” without suntan lotion? Well a fair skin Nortern European may burn to a crisp in 30 minutes but other people can be fine, such as if they have more of a Mediterranean background.

So maybe one guy can play for a decade and still hear quite well, but another guy can do jist a few loud gigs and already show some measureable permanent loss.

Problem is you don’t really know if your going to get loss until it happens, so best defense is hearing protection.

What’s encouraging is lots of younger musicians from college programs, teens etc are taking a really proactive stance and getting custom plugs, I’m seeing more IEM’s etc.

Downside is that if musicians start to have better hearing thresholds as a whole we are going to have to start putting quieter fans into products lol

 

[gigawatt]

What is that behemoth?

That behemoth is the Champ CBA 500 Bass amp.

No fan and quieter than a mouse. Those are some transformers eh?

 

[Thenewexhibit]

Any basic 3 pin connector will work, just your basic fan. What you don't need is the 4 pin PWM fans, as those are controlled via software, which the Axe can't do.

I don't think the fan in question looks all that great, its just a basic rifle bearning, and nothing really all that special over the stock fan.

You can see in these pictures the stock fan, and then a Noctua. The stock fan has rubber grommets with the fan bolted to the fan deck plate. The Noctua can be mounted using silicon isolation tabs, like most computer fans, and then has extra isolation pads. These provides essentially zero vibration transmission. The stock fans sometimes had the bolts too tighter, mine had the bolt sticking out about 1/4th", which meant the gromitt was so compressed it didn't really do any dampening.

The Noctua fan has much better self stabilizing oil pressure bearing, 150,000 Hr lifetime, 6 year warranty, etc.

As far as the cable goes, it just plugs into the main board, 5 seconds.

View attachment 47425 View attachment 47426 View attachment 47427 View attachment 47428 View attachment 47429

How did this fan work out? I'm noticing some noise with mine. I added DIY rubber under the mounting plate between the plate and hex nuts (old rubber bracelet) and it seemed to take the noise down a bit, but I don't hear the "nothing" that some people say they do when sitting a foot away from it. Would rubber washers work better then the rubber from those stretchy bracelets?