PC Peripherals Lubing a rifle bearing PC Fan

[dvader]

This is a placeholder post to see if my experience is in tandem with others'. So I have this inverter which has got a FAN, it became noisy to a point where I would wake up in the night to it's noise(light sleeper). I opened up the bas**rd, saw it was a usual rifle bearing with opening at the back, I put machine oil in it and closed up the inverter. I just wanted to silence it until I can get a new FAN delivered.

For long I had this assumption that lubing the Fan doesn't actually do anything significant cuz there is a rubber gasket and there is no way oil is gonna reach the rifle section. However the inverter Fan became so quite, I had to actually check if it's spinning. This gave me an Idea and I lubed up a few of my case Fans which I decommissioned at some point in time. To be a bit scientific, I took a pair of gigabyte Fans which were used in case and were used together until one day they became a bit noisy and I just put them away to be trashed. I lubed one of them and checked it's RPM at full 12v, to my surprise not only it became dead quite It was reporting a good 100 RPMs over the non lubed one.

Non-Lubed: ~1200
Lubed: ~1300

I mean it really works somehow.

 

[6pack]

I've done this with my APC Sine wave inverter. The fan was too noisy and i could hear it 2 rooms away. Opened up the fan center and first used red grease which worked for a few months. It became noisy again and this time i used white grease and its become very quite.

 

[nRiTeCh]

This is a placeholder post to see if my experience is in tandem with others'. So I have this inverter which has got a FAN, it became noisy to a point where I would wake up in the night to it's noise(light sleeper). I opened up the bas**rd, saw it was a usual rifle bearing with opening at the back, I put machine oil in it and closed up the inverter. I just wanted to silence it until I can get a new FAN delivered.

For long I had this assumption that lubing the Fan doesn't actually do anything significant cuz there is a rubber gasket and there is no way oil is gonna reach the rifle section. However the inverter Fan became so quite, I had to actually check if it's spinning. This gave me an Idea and I lubed up a few of my case Fans which I decommissioned at some point in time. To be a bit scientific, I took a pair of gigabyte Fans which were used in case and were used together until one day they became a bit noisy and I just put them away to be trashed. I lubed one of them and checked it's RPM at full 12v, to my surprise not only it became dead quite It was reporting a good 100 RPMs over the non lubed one.

Non-Lubed: ~1200
Lubed: ~1300

I mean it really works somehow.

Thats how it is supposed to be lubed. Even regular parachute oil work wonders. My best exp. was with sewing machine oil, the old fans never ever made noise at least for 3-4 years before I upgrade.

 

[dvader]

Thats how it is supposed to be lubed. Even regular parachute oil work wonders. My best exp. was with sewing machine oil, thie old fans never ever made noise at least for 3-4 years before I upgrade.

Yup that's what I used, sewing machine oil. The fan is just so smooth and quiet after that...

 

[rockyo27]

This is a placeholder post to see if my experience is in tandem with others'. So I have this inverter which has got a FAN, it became noisy to a point where I would wake up in the night to it's noise(light sleeper). I opened up the bas**rd, saw it was a usual rifle bearing with opening at the back, I put machine oil in it and closed up the inverter. I just wanted to silence it until I can get a new FAN delivered.

For long I had this assumption that lubing the Fan doesn't actually do anything significant cuz there is a rubber gasket and there is no way oil is gonna reach the rifle section. However the inverter Fan became so quite, I had to actually check if it's spinning. This gave me an Idea and I lubed up a few of my case Fans which I decommissioned at some point in time. To be a bit scientific, I took a pair of gigabyte Fans which were used in case and were used together until one day they became a bit noisy and I just put them away to be trashed. I lubed one of them and checked it's RPM at full 12v, to my surprise not only it became dead quite It was reporting a good 100 RPMs over the non lubed one.

Non-Lubed: ~1200
Lubed: ~1300

I mean it really works somehow.

I have seen that these fans usually come with grease in them and are closed with stickers from back....like @6pack said grease work good usually white one which i have also seen in them when new. But as machine oil worked good for you maybe that's what u can go with it but other fans may or may not work with it every time.

 

[abmr2d2]

Thats how it is supposed to be lubed. Even regular parachute oil work wonders. My best exp. was with sewing machine oil, the old fans never ever made noise at least for 3-4 years before I upgrade.

That's been my experience too. Once I had used machine oil bought from a hardware store for lubricating a sewing machine, but it had the opposite effect. It gummed up the sewing machine. Upon enquiring in a sewing materials shop the shopkeeper advised me to never use machine oil from the hardware store or even parachute/coconut oil to lubricate a sewing machine as they gum it up instead of lubricating it since the consistency of the oil is thick. The oil made specifically for sewing machines has a thinner consistency and should only be used for lubrication of sewing machines. Similar to @nRiTeCh I've had very good results using the sewing machine oil for lubricating the fans. Only thing is to lubricate them and run them for 10-15 mins in the open to get rid of excess oil before fixing them in their final place.

 

[dvader]

That's been my experience too. Once I had used machine oil bought from a hardware store for lubricating a sewing machine, but it had the opposite effect. It gummed up the sewing machine. Upon enquiring in a sewing materials shop the shopkeeper advised me to never use machine oil from the hardware store or even parachute/coconut oil to lubricate a sewing machine as they gum it up instead of lubricating it since the consistency of the oil is thick. The oil made specifically for sewing machines has a thinner consistency and should only be used for lubrication of sewing machines. Similar to @nRiTeCh I've had very good results using the sewing machine oil for lubricating the fans. Only thing is to lubricate them and run them for 10-15 mins in the open to get rid of excess oil before fixing them in their final place.

Yup it's the thinner consistency of the sewing machine oil. There is a small o' ring which is supposed to seal the grease however (I think) it lets the machine oil get in and that's why it works.