Honycomb Airflow Straigtener?

[yoshi02]

I was surfing the web for fans when I found this site. Also there are some statistics here. Does it look worthwhile? Should I spend the money for one of these? :thumbs-up:

[Kamikaze_Badger]

http://forums.overclockersclub.com/index.p...=75527&st=0

 

You can PM him directly if you want, but based on what he's said, it works, and it's used by NASA. He's also the guy who sells them (as if that wasn't obvious), so there's always the minor chance of product bias. But he seems like a fair enough guy.

[yoshi02]

Yes, I found his rig in the Case Gallery section. I was wondering if anyone else has personal experiences with them.

[Waco]

Why not build your own? He showed in the build thread how to make them out of straws, it'd be worth a shot to see if you want to buy a good looking one afterwards.

[yoshi02]

Aha, I just found the straw structure you are referring to. That looks very interesting; I might just have to give it a shot.

Edited November 20, 2007 by yoshi02

[Bleeble]

Yes, I found his rig in the Case Gallery section. I was wondering if anyone else has personal experiences with them.

I'm working on a mini review of his 120mm flow straighteners at the moment. Take a look at this image of my case: http://forums.overclockersclub.com/uploads..._214_555693.jpg. OK, see that fan pointing toward the chipset heatsink and video card? Well, putting a flow straightener in front of that lowers my chipset temps 3C. I've done it twice to make sure it wasn't a fluke and I'm about to try it again.

 

The fan is a Panaflo M1A running at 12V. I was testing the NB temps by running Orthos Blend, letting it run long enough for the loop to come to equilibrium and for the case to heat up.

 

I'm working on doing some more testing, but I've got exams coming up so things are a bit slower than I'd like.

[saxxon]

http://forums.overclockersclub.com/index.p...=75527&st=0

 

You can PM him directly if you want, but based on what he's said, it works, and it's used by NASA. He's also the guy who sells them (as if that wasn't obvious), so there's always the minor chance of product bias. But he seems like a fair enough guy.

 

Well I didn't mean to make it that obvious. And I didn't want to post on here and make it overkill. Wow, your the first group who has wanted to make one out of drinking straws. It took me a few hours to put that one together. But it worked so well I made 2 more 80mm's, one ran in my other system 3 months. I will post a few independent reviews on here for you folks. yoshi02, I appreciate your interest, this should help you make an informed decision. What size were you interested in? Seems like high performance systems long ago outgrew the 80-92 mm sizes, most interest is for 120mm.

Bleeble is the only OCC member I know for sure has these, and he is working on a review. He was interested in using them for a watercooling radiator. I inquired about a review from OCC but

The engineer that called me from Analogic said he was skeptical and got up into the light fixture in the building to see for himself. Industrial buildings use a 1/4 inch square lattice to aim the lighting, so he broke out a piece of this stuff and tried it out. What was funny was he said "I can't just take all the light fixtures out of the building, so I called you" I don't even know where all these industrial engineers get my information, unless they are reading Ebay or OCC, PCApex and the like. But I get more industrial orders and inquiries than PC fans. Especially in the U.S., but hey, I am the same way. If I don't see it in Tom's Hardware or Fox News I don't believe.

Probably the best review I have recieved was from Analogic, they were running 4 120mm straighteners in the rotating gantry of a CAT scanner to cool 10 tightly packed video boards.

Here is an Analogic CAT scanner:

And this is a CFD image of the CAT video boards from daat.com

 

The feedback I recieved from them was:

Roby Prentiss- ME- Analogic Corp.

120mm running in CAT scan rotating gantry

"These flow straighteners worked too well. If these were designed into the product in the beginning it may have worked better than trying to use them as a "fix" in the end. The straighteners got allot of attention by many of our project engineers who witnessed a dramatic performance increase. With this knowlege I suspect in the future these devices may be coupled with smaller less expensive fans. thank you for all your help"

 

Getting good results from my CPU temps, frame rates and such was great but improving a million dollar CAT scanners performance was better validation than I could produce.

Many universities and businesses do not bother with writing a review

Here is the only online review so far, from the UK at voidedwarranty.com Voided Warranty Honeycomb Review

And that is using plastic industrial manufactured straws. The aluminum honeycomb works much better. PCApex has done a review but is has not been posted yet. It usually takes a while.

 

Here are some personal reviews:

 

The Slayer (Hardware Hell forum moderator)

Intel Core 2 Xtreme 6800

2-xfx 7950 GX2's

Corsair PC2 8500

"..with Silverstone FM121 fan I was 3 degrees C cooler at idle and load."

"My GeminII heatsink will have some of these as a permanent fixture"

 

Ratchetfps (PC Apex forum)

"makes any fan into a bad a ss fan"

 

Rick Dudley (Gamer)

"P4 Prescott has never run cooler, running only with side case fan 80mm honeycomb"

 

Barry Sharp (Intel F20 technician)

Installed on TEI 120mm AC 110 fan Model TA1238-M-110 for Onkyo Home Theater Receiver - TXNR901B

"Before adding a fan to my media cabinet the receiver would overheat and shut off. Adding the fan helped but I could turn down the speed for improved cooling and lower noise when I added the air flow straightener. Receiver running full power is now cool to touch and has never shut off. Thanks for the help Saxon PC. (P.S. I also used this same design at my office where my pc is in an enclosed cabinet and now stays much much cooler."

 

Fungi (Silent PC Review forum)

"straightener put an "invisible duct" over 3 feet away, surprising how focused the air became at that distance. It might be useful for spot coolers that have to blow on something a little ways away."

 

Here is a photo of the big panels used in wind tunnels:

 

The north bridge in my clear acrylic case ran hot, George Forman hot, so I used one and dropped my NB temp 15C

 

I appreciate the discussion

Edited November 21, 2007 by saxxon

[yoshi02]

Unfortunatly, I am not a hardcore PC builder like alot of the guys here. I only have 80mm fans in my rig. I just took out a ruler to see actually how large 12cm is... it's pretty massive lol. I have 3 or 4 80mm fans I would actually like to test the honeycomb on. I want to place some thin sheets of it on the RAM and hard drive. I am also thinking about using some to route the air behind the motherboard and see if there are any temperature differences. Tell me what you think would be the best amount of material to get for this. Thanks!

[Bleeble]

Update: I just removed the flow straightener and my NB temps went from 32C to 34C. That said, my CPU temps seem to have gone down a bit during that time, so it's likely that the actual difference was more than 2C.

[saxxon]

Unfortunatly, I am not a hardcore PC builder like alot of the guys here. I only have 80mm fans in my rig. I just took out a ruler to see actually how large 12cm is... it's pretty massive lol. I have 3 or 4 80mm fans I would actually like to test the honeycomb on. I want to place some thin sheets of it on the RAM and hard drive. I am also thinking about using some to route the air behind the motherboard and see if there are any temperature differences. Tell me what you think would be the best amount of material to get for this. Thanks!

Nice, someone who uses 80mm 3-4 sheets are not too much, and I can cut it to 80mm for you if you want just the material with no housing. It is fun material to test with.

This one has run since june in this system, helping the NB and memory temps. And noticably less dust build up on the hardware than the stock fan was leaving.

[saxxon]

I'm working on a mini review of his 120mm flow straighteners at the moment. Take a look at this image of my case: http://forums.overclockersclub.com/uploads..._214_555693.jpg. OK, see that fan pointing toward the chipset heatsink and video card? Well, putting a flow straightener in front of that lowers my chipset temps 3C. I've done it twice to make sure it wasn't a fluke and I'm about to try it again.

 

The fan is a Panaflo M1A running at 12V. I was testing the NB temps by running Orthos Blend, letting it run long enough for the loop to come to equilibrium and for the case to heat up.

 

I'm working on doing some more testing, but I've got exams coming up so things are a bit slower than I'd like.

This is starting to look like it's going to be a good review allready Bleeble. Good reference to your test methods and photos. Make sure you can post most your hardware specs too.

 

I found a good pic of an EMI shield too. Here is an EMI shield for an aircraft, looks pretty much the same, but these are expensive parts.

Edited November 23, 2007 by saxxon