WTF (Wild Turbo Fan) - OEM?
 

Hi folks

there MUST be someone who can ID what really is the OEM behind the famous WTF and its outrageous price and not-so-subtle marketing... Sunon, or someone else? Badge engineering shouldn't exist in the information era... ;)

http://www.fast-webshop.com/fotky522...yr_48884_0.jpg

Cheers,
Paul

I think you'll be out of luck on this request. Trust me.. I've tried the computer fan market before. Leo and the rest of the WTF team know what they are doing. These are special built fans for R/C.

I think competition-RC volumes aren't enough to warrrant an RC-bespoke product. At least not in the $10-$20 price range. Injection molding is relatively affordable only with volume (setup costs...), and mold costs a lot. Volumes are even more tiny as you consider there are several brands out there who sell similar products, even if considered "premium" (R1wurks, ...). The computer/industrial business is driving R&D activity and production in the miniature cooling business... This must be coming out from somewhere non-RC, and is rebadged and sold at a premium.

By the way note there are no CFM specs provided on the "datasheet". Shame...

Paul

I'll gladly pay the "premium" to save a $90-100 spec motor. I have no objection to the current price point, and no desire to source an OEM manufacturer that'll sell me 5 fans for $5 less per unit. Someone did their homework, did the legwork to bring the fan to our marketplace, and the current price reflects the demand for the product. Pricing seems fair to me...

Then again you're part of the Solid Gold Racing Team. I'm part of the Aluminium Foil one :lol:

Anyways... if someone's cracked it, please let the cheapstakes like me who refused to get skinned by savvy (ahem) marketing know.

Paul

I would also think that the molds are not custom-made for this application. But a special motor wind and/or motor driver would certainly be a possibility.

I think these fans are being made specifically for rc. Computer case fans are all 5v or 12v. These rc companies are most likely having fans made to their specs by pc fan manufacturers.

Here's a cheap fan that looks alot like the wtf fan.

http://m.ebay.com/itm/8-4V-3cm-30mm-...-/261749822774

I personally use the superior fan and it withstands lots of abuse.

I tried that exact fan and it does not blow very hard at all. I tested it with a digital scale and it only blows about 1.5 grams of wind at 7 volts. It went out after less than a day.

I also tested 2 WTF fans. The "windy" model blew 5.5 grams at 6 volts. Their 40mm fan blows about 8-8.5 grams at 7 volts.

Any one try this one?
http://www.frozencpu.com/images/prod...fan5v-04_2.jpg

Or this one:

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/21...tl=g36c15s1993

I can pretty much say that a PC fan manufacturer is not going to build "special" RC only fans. They have to be a normal high cfm fan. As for the voltage, most fans will operate in a "range". A 12 volt fan will work with less voltage, just won't be as fast as with 12 volts. A 5 volt fan might also work, but will fail quicker due to the components being over the rated voltage.

You can use a 12v fan and step up the voltage with one of these 12v Step up regulator
The regulator only weighs .4g and can handle 1.4A

http://uk.alibaba.com/product/600337...-4010-1-6.html
http://www.alibaba.com/product-detai...883380984.html


Connect it to the receiver.

I promise you that if I call up a chinese manufacturer, tell them I want 2000 of their 98483758932 fans but wound with x winds of y gauge wire, they will start making them the moment my check clears.

The crazy thing about cheap chinese labor is that a LOT of stuff that comes from there is actually hand made. It's cheaper for them than investing in automated tooling that would require expensive re-sets and programming. Instead you just use the same molded stuff you use in your normal computer fans, hand the girls a different spool of wire and tell them to do x winds instead of y. Problem solved.

Not saying that's what wtf has done, I have no idea but it certainly could be done.

Correct. There might be a setup fee, but it wouldn't be much.

WTF fans are well worth the cost. I agree with solid gold, I'd much rather spend $10-$20 on a fan than $80-$150 on a motor.

Must be a small fan manufacturer, pun intended, lol. I would imagine it would take more like 200,000+ fans for them to stop or change a production line making over a million fans, just for a little more cfm's. They would direct them to an existing fan set up and maybe alter plug or inline resistor to adjust cfm.
You might be right, but I would want to see proof that a PC fan manufacturer would do special builds for that little of market.

Tha same fan from WTF is also sold as Robitronic, Muchmore and several other RC brands so I have seen. So there must be a manufacturer making these in large quantities.

I have the Muchmore MMRC3043 on most of my cars. It definitely does not move as much air --or make nearly as much noise!-- as the WTF.

I have my WTF windy fan behind the motor and it works great. I keep making the joke I am going to move stuff around and put it in front of the motor and it blows so much air the I will pick up 2/10s.

One of the few RC products that are worth the money.

Pretty sure the WTF motors is a custom wind.

The WTF Windy appears to have a custom housing as well.

That's just it, there is no production line. It's a room full of men and women working for peanuts slapping these things together by hand. Just walk up to the ten on the end, hand them a spool of wire and give some new instructions.

The WTF "Windy" fans are overpriced and overrated. The Yeah Racing 30mm Tornado fans blow just as hard if not harder for less than half the price. I have tested at least 6 YR tornados and they blow between 5.5 and 6.5 grams of wind force at 6 volts.

My WTF windy blows no more than 5.5 grams at 6 volts but it takes 20-30 seconds to eventually blow that hard.

Make sure you are comparing apples to apples:

WTF 30mm Ultra High Speed Motor Cooling Fan, $12.99 on their web site;

Yeah Racing Tornado High Speed Cooling Fan 30x 30mm, $10.99 from TQ Racing.

(30mm is the only size permitted by ROAR)

Windy fans are roar legal since the fan part is still <30mm. Someone asked at carpet nats and it was deemed legal.

Tc4- sounds like you have a bad fan. Should not be taking that long to spool up.

Always been curious so I tested my superior hobbies f5 fan and I'm getting 8.0 grams on a near fully charged 2s lipo for anyone interested.

Try another WTF, (does it have black wires or red and black?) some move lots of air and others don't.

@tc4 - make sure you're using battery voltage, not powering from your receiver

I'd rather speak CFM than gms, to be honest... Not smart enough to do the conversion, my fluid mechanics classes were many, many moons ago (and I sucked). Industry standard is CFM.

Paul

Not exactly trying to conform to an industries standard. Just comparing apples to apples here.

I've done these same tests, and agree that at 6v there's not much in it. But the Windy fan can take 8.4v, and once you do that it pushes more air than the Tornado. The Tornado won't take lipo voltage; I tried with my first one and it was dead after one meeting.

I did a back-to-back on Monday and the motor was 4deg cooler with the Windy (8.4v) than with the Tornado (6v). That's using a data-logger for accurate comparisons, in stable conditions. The Windy is a lot bigger and heavier though. I took a dremel to mine and removed about 4g off the outer housing.

Understand. But that'd help compare badge-engineered fans vs. industrial products. Maybe that's why WTF and the others don't publish CFM data.


Dale, how's your windy fan connected to the power system? Straight to lipo power wires?

Paul

Just want to point out , the last time I had to actually "buy" a fan was at a race. The cheapest POS the lhs had was $10. The plug didn't fit and had to be swapped out , and its a total piece of crap . That being said , being able to buy a much better product for just a few dollars more seems very reasonable to me. Order 2 , install one , put the other in the tool box . Keep the stock stuff for spares or whatever . The way I see it , $25 dollars will buy all the fans I will ever need .

And this illustrates why "standard 30mm fan" is a piss-poor definition for a fan.

Have you actually seen that? I highly doubt there is no production line, lol. Even if it is 50 Chinese children building these things, there is still a production line. All, and I mean ALL manufacturers whether American, Chinese, or Polish have a production line of some sort. And it would still take away from bigger accounts than a RC fan. You could sell 2 to everyone who owns a TC and it still wouldn't be enough to manufacture a RC specific fan.
If you owned a fan making company, would you change a few in the production line for a low volume customer? Or would you use that same time and materials to make more for a high volume customer?

The reason I speak of this, is because I worked for a arcade game manufacturer and we discovered it was cheaper for us to design our board carriages to use existing fans than to order special fans for cooling. We wanted to use higher cfm fans, so we could make the case smaller, and use less of them, thus reducing noise. But, it was not cost effective. We ended up using more fans than we wanted, but used low Db fans to lessen the fan noise. Our shop would install over 2000 fans a week in this "production" line of 20 technicians. But hey, that was about 10 years ago, lol.

I actually threw my WTF windy fan out last week when it stopped working. Looks like the wires had broken off the fan which is a very common problem with fans. It did work for about 3-4 months though.

Make sure you break-in the fan before using it. I've run Tornado fans wired direct to the ESC +/- for years (still have one running from my original batch order) and have had only one fail. Was likely a poor mounting choice over mechanical failure. No fan is safe when it comes loose and bounces around the chassis. :blush:

Every new fan I get, regardless of manufacturer, runs on a 1S battery for two 30 minute cycles before being used. I think YR recommends 2-3 continuous hours but doesn't specify voltage - still seems excessive though.

I also add a bit of silicone/Shoe-Goo to the housing where the wires come out, and try to taper it along the wire a little to add strength and stability. It helps prevent the wire from having a single point of flex and breaking.

I would hope so but often not the case.

What component(s) are you "breaking in"?

It's mentioned in the paperwork that comes with the fan

"For the best performance, please run the Yeah Racing Tornado Cooling Fan for 2 - 3 hours continuously on the first time usage."

I have two (straight out of the package, right onto the cars) Tornados that are three(?) seasons old and are still going strong, and a couple WTF fans on other cars, purchased right around their initial release... no problems with either, wired directly to the battery.

Now the old GTB fans.. I don't think I ever owned one that didn't end up broken or missing blades. :)

And what component(s) does this "break-in"?