Endorfy Fluctus 140 PWM: High efficiency “cheaply”, but…

Cooling, Extra tests, Fans | | Ľubomír Samák

Endorfy Fluctus 140 PWM in detail

A fan does not have to be expensive to achieve high airflow at reasonable noise levels. A good example of this is the 140mm Fluctus, which is very high on the price/performance charts. It is outperformed virtually only by fans with more significant shortcomings in some aspects. The Fluctus 140 PWM is not flawless either, but it is still a hot favourite in its price range for many scenarios.

If you’ve read the earlier Endorfy Fluctus 140 PWM ARGB fan test, you know roughly what to expect from the unlighted Endorfy Fluctus 140 PWM. But the important thing in the previous sentence is the word “roughly”. We’ve already teased that the features won’t be a carbon copy in Analysis: RGB LED implementation changes fan noise.

The main difference is that the blades of the Fluctus 140 PWM are stiffer, less flexible than the “ARGB” variant with a different rotor material structure. It’s not a dramatic difference, but even without any exact measurements – by pushing the tip of the blade with your finger – you’ll be able to tell which fan has the stiffer rotor. In this case, it belongs to the “ordinary” model with the black rotor.

The rotor and frame shape of both Fluctus 140 PWM (ARGB) fans is the same. The blades always end at the thickest point (at the tip) at a thickness of 2.8 mm and are made of PBT (while the rotor of the ARGB variant is polycarbonate). The geometry combines a more pronounced curvature of the leading edges (for pronounced air stream rotation) with a relatively wide profile, which allows the blade area to be rounded quite significantly in width. And this, too, of course, contributes to greater stiffness and less vibration when the fan is running.

The characteristic feature of the blades is the serrated leading edges. The tooth structure is considerably finer than on the smaller, 120-millimeter variants (Fluctus 120 PWM). The manufacturer explains this by the fact that smaller teeth on longer blades work better, especially at lower speeds. The role of these teeth is mainly to reduce the noise that is inadvertently created when cutting the air streams on the leading edges of the blades.

The rotor has a universal design, with a smaller blade inclination and medium-sized gaps between the blades. This design has all the prerequisites for high efficiency (in terms of air flow per unit of noise) even in more restrictive environments, on case grilles or cooler radiators.

Anti-vibration pads are included in the corners of the frame to reduce vibration. However, these are both quite hard and quite thin. They are certainly not useless, they will absorb some of the vibrations of the mechanical parts, but their design could have been more effective. That would be especially handy with this fan, which is accompanied by vibrations across the entire speed spectrum.

Warning: This fan may collide with nylon dust filters that do not have a reinforced mesh in some way. The height difference between the frame and the rotor structure is too small and there is a risk of mutual contact resulting in excessive, extremely unpleasant noise.

   

The trailing edges are smooth this time, exemplary. With the lighted variant, we had some complaints about manufacturing imperfections, but these may only apply to certain batches. You may also encounter minor hitches with this model (Fluctus 140 PWM). Manufacturing tolerances as well as output quality control are obviously lower, but with inexpensive fans this is natural and we are mainly talking about cosmetics, which have almost no effect on the fan’s properties.

If Endorfy doesn’t mean anything to you, but you know SilentiumPC, know that it’s the same brand, just renamed.SilentiumPC changed the name to Endorphy last year. We also released an interview with a representative of the company (Cooling) on the reasons why this happened.

In addition to a set of screws, the Endorfy Fluctus 140 PWM accessories include a 40-cm extension cable. When connected to the cable that comes straight out of the fan, you get to an extra 67 cm or up to 82 cm if you apply it for a second connector to connect another fan in series.

* When reading performance values, a certain amount of tolerance must always be taken into account. For maximum speeds, ±10 % is usually quoted, minimum speeds can vary considerably more from piece to piece, sometimes manufacturers will overlap by as much as ±50 %. This must then also be adequately taken into account for air flow, static pressure and noise levels. If only one value is given in a table entry, this means that it always refers to the situation at maximum speed, which is achieved at 12 V or 100 % PWM intensity. The manufacturer does not disclose the lower limit of the performance specifications in its materials in that case. The price in the last column is always approximate.


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