ESC Fans
 

Really simple guys, I've been having multiple fan failures lately on a variety of cars and trucks. It's possible that they have just worn out from use. The oldest one at this point currently in use is about three years old.

Which fans have been providing you with a long service life?

I get that all these fans probably come from the same bin.... But maybe they don't. The fans on my LRP, Tekin and ORCA Esc's seem to do pretty good. My Reedy, Turnigy and no name generics seem to crash fairly quickly. I just had a brand new Turnigy TrackStar fan burn up after five laps today so I'm looking for options.

Yeah yeah, I know.... Not a fancy esc/motor/chassis question. Just a mundane fan...

What are your thoughts?

It is possible that they fail quicker if you run them in wet/muddy conditions or if the bearing inside the fan is low quality which I imagine would be inside the off brand fans. Bad bearing leads to a burnt up fan pretty quick.

Luckily I've only had one fan fail on me from an SMC 120a esc. Otherwise my Tekin, castle, and Team Powers fans have been going for years.

No real abuse that I can tell. My cars are only run on the track, only when dry and are meticulously detailed after the days run. I can spin the blades without any noise from the bearing. It just seems that they burn up... Don't know man. Lol

I guess I'll just buy a replacement fan from a major brand and roll with it. I just figured maybe there was a "high quality" aftermarket fan company out there that people might be using.

It probably wouldn't be something you can feel by spinning the blades manually since these tiny fans run at upwards of 4k rpm. So testing it that way wouldn't really show you anything.

But if you're not opposed to trying something new, you could wire up one of these Noctua fans to work with your ESC provided it uses a 40mm fan.

http://noctua.at/en/nf-a4x10-flx/specification

It comes with an adapter to convert it to a 2 pin design. Then you just add a fan connector from one of the broken fans.

What classes are you running? Depending on the class you can just go without an ESC fan.

Have you tried ball bearing fans as apposed to sleeve bearing fans?

What voltages? 2s vs 3s will greatly vary in life.

What kind of failures are your fans succumbing to?

A large fan would also probably last a little longer too.

25mm are what I'm using on them.


These are all on Mod cars running 5.5/6.5/7.5's. All my Esc's from the tekin RSX to the Orion R10.1's come off pretty hot after a 10 minute race. Definitely fan territory. Like I said, I just wondered if anyone was using a particular fan they found that seemed to last longer than the others consistently. Most of my high end Esc's, using the included fans, the fans last a year or so. But some last a week. A few have lasted years.

Today's failed TrackStar fan was in a 7.5 powered 2wd buggy. Yet one Tekin fan in a 4wd SCT has lasted over two years now. No consistency here...