ZWO cooling fan vibrations

[david_taurus83]

There have been a number of threads on this subject and I think I may be another victim of this affliction! After the unexpected clear sky on Saturday night, I noticed when doing flats early Sunday morning that the cooler was on 100% but only at -9°C. Turns out the fan had packed in. I have some spare cheap fans the same size so I changed it yesterday, ready for a second clear night. I left the scope to its own devices last night and ran everything through Blink today. Saturday nights subs with no fan running all are nice and consistantly round. Sunday nights subs however all have a slight elongation from left to right. The only thing that changed between both nights was a non working fan to a new working one. Scope is a C8 Edge and focal length is 1480mm. Guiding was pretty good for both nights. I've seen on the other threads that some people have used some sort of rubber type screws to isolate the fan a bit better. Is that the only fix or is there a better quality fan to use?

Interestingly the Saturday subs were all around -2°C and the fixed pattern noise looks more evident than Sundays -10°C subs with working fan so I would say yes, cooling is better.

[Budgie1]

ZWO do a replacement fans, which may be better quality than the spares you have: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/zwo-accessories/zwo-cooling-fan-for-pro-series-cameras.html 

[Carbon Brush]

Fans are a very variable quality item. A lot of people offer them based on size, airflow and ££.
Life expectancy, noise and vibration only becoming apparent if you look deeper!
If ££ is more important than life or noise... Look no further than the fans in a lot of consumer items.
Vibration can come from badly balanced components, or a poor brushless drive method.

The fan offered by FLO is a known name. Part of the Sunon range with bearings to reduce noise and vibration, with long life.
At first sight £17 seems a lot for a little fan. But it comes with the connector (not flying leads that you need to terminate) and it does the job well.

HTH, David.
 

[david_taurus83]

For a few pound cheaper, I have ordered a Noctua fan off Amazon that comes with the rubber thingies. I was going to get the Sunon one but then others have reported issues with those as well. For the record, I had never noticed any issues with the Sunon fan in my camera until it packed up. I'm sure the issue is the cheap one I have put in but I have also never imaged at near 1.5m focal length either. Hopefully I can get the new fan installed in time for yet more testing of my latest setup. I thought after a successful Saturday night I was there!

[Elp]

Noctua is the goto fan for good quality PC builds.

[david_taurus83]

The Noctua fan and silicone 'screws' have done the trick.

 

[TiffsAndAstro]

This doesn't sound fit for purpose or of merchantable quality from here.

At some point I'd like a imx585 based camera and I'll be avoiding zwo I think.