PSA for people with Gen 5 radions and fan noise - Disable the Fan Shutdown option

[Brett S]

So I just replaced my Gen 3 XR30 Pro’s with Gen 5 Blues and while I love these lights the fans were driving me nuts. They are way louder and harsher than the fans on the Gen 3 lights, which were all but inaudible most of the time.

As I was doing a bit of research to see if anyone else had issues with the fan noise I found a few people who had even put small computer fans on the lights to give them airflow without needing the loud internal fan to come on. I also thought about how the fans in the Gen 3 Radions never shut off.

What I finally realized is that the Fan shutdown option is really causing them to make extra noise. When this option is enabled it will turn the fan in the light off, until the heatsink reaches a certain temperature threshold, at which point it will turn the fan on (at a reasonably high and noisy speed) to cool the light. Once it is sufficiently cool it will turn the fan off again.

If you disable the fan shutdown option then the fans will run all the time, but because they are running all the time the light will stay cooler, so the fans will run at a lower speed and run more quietly. Unfortunately, even at the lower speed the fans are still louder than my Gen 3 lights, but three Gen 5 lights running at low speed is quieter than one Gen 5 light running at a higher speed.

Also note that when you initially disable this option, if you do it in the middle of the day when the lights are warm, then the fans may come on at a high and noisy speed. But let them run for 15 or 20 minutes to cool down the light and eventually they will lower their speed.

I suspect that this is probably better for the long term health of the light as well, given that it allows the light to run cooler.

Let me know if this works for you.

 

[User1]

The fan in the new G5's is a hot topic and some interesting threads discussing it. Interesting to note that they designed a new fan specially for this. It isn't off the shelf. If you haven't open a ticket or send a email. My concern about changing it would be if there is any side effect in thermals. Expensive light and while a decent design it needs the fan for cooling compared to the new passive units ATI and Phiilps launched.

 

[Brett S]

The fan in the new G5's is a hot topic and some interesting threads discussing it. Interesting to note that they designed a new fan specially for this. It isn't off the shelf. If you haven't open a ticket or send a email. My concern about changing it would be if there is any side effect in thermals. Expensive light and while a decent design it needs the fan for cooling compared to the new passive units ATI and Phiilps launched.

Yeah, it seems like there are a few posts on it. I did call in and speak to ecotech about it, but didn’t really get anywhere other than “It’s a new fan design and might be louder than the previous generation lights”. I would think that something was wrong with the fan, but I have three lights and they all sound the same, I think it’s highly unlikely that all three would have a problem out of the box.

As far as making the change and affecting the thermals, perhaps my post was unclear, but the default is for the fan to be off and let the light cool passively, until the heatsink hits a certain temp, in which case the fan comes on to cool it off and prevent it from overheating. What I am suggesting is that instead of doing this you configure it so the fan runs 100% of the time. This keeps the light cooler, which means that the fan can run at a lower speed and run more quietly. Frankly I would think this would be better for the light as it won’t be constantly heating up and cooling down as the fan cycles on and off.

 

[Zoomer]

Thanks for your thoughtful articulation on the topic. How have things gone since you've done this?

I have G5 Blues I upgraded with the G6 kit about a year ago. I was hoping when I opened up the unit I was going to an obvious thing to fix that was making the fan loud, but that was not the case. I'm about to reboot the system that those lights are on and I've considered just going to passively cooled AI Blades, but I'm worried that they won't have the desired intensity... I might even be willing to buy new G6 (Pro) fixtures outright if I knew the fans weren't as loud as the G5 fans...