https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHLn2U7i45M_EXIsnqUyI...
I got three of their house fans from Costco a few years ago. Great fans - low power draw, good looks, includes a nice light, good noise profile, etc.
The fans didn't include wall panels, which I wanted rather than only remotes. No problem, I figured I'll order 3 of them from their site. However, there's an obvious bug in the shipping calculator, where the cost to ship three little wall boxes came out to $40+$40+$40 = $120. (And where the shipping page called this a "flat rate".) If I wanted to order 50 wall boxes, the shipping would be $2,000! The shipping cost was completely incongruent with other items in their shop - e.g. I could order 100 branded mugs for a flat shipping charge of $40. (And this is on top of the wall controllers that where already $123 each for some pretty simple electronics.)
I had probably a dozen support interactions over a couple weeks over both phone and email trying to get Big Ass Fans to fix their broken website and/or just put the wall controllers in a $30 flat-rate shipping box for me before we finally settled on a $55 shipping charge where I still felt like I was getting ripped off.
Reddit is a much better place for that now, and if you aren't particularly precious about documentary-style fact reporting, you're much better off browsing r/fanfiction.
> you're much better off browsing r/fanfiction.
This thread is a train wreck
OnlyFans…
Get it?
The punchline is buried a little bit too deep, but pretty sure they're just playing along.
Noob question: If someone wants to copy their design with no respect to their intellectual property, can't they just 3D scan?
The US restriction is quite mad, if you think about it. Freedom my ass.
Well, in terms of its design, the patent system was designed to reward what we now call theft of IP, by granting someone exclusive use of a technology that they would bring in from another country. Greenfield invention was an afterthought and some of the problems we face stem from that disconnect.
Sadly there is indeed no blanket permission for public research and education in Germany, either. There is little point mentioning it, but HN rate-limited my account, so I couldn't edit or comment to clarify in time.
I am not advocating for the German patent system, I just think the US is particularly ridiculous prohibiting personal reproduction and use. Like, you got a lathe, lab, computer or 3D printer and are literally prohibited to use it as you please, not allowed create certain mechanisms, substances, shapes and functions, for your own use, or even survival, without (possibly) harming anyone else.
No individuals gets prosecuted for it. The companies would spend more on lawyers than they could possibly collect.
The whole point of a patent is encouraging progress through disclosure of knowledge.
I guess you could argue that inventors would hide their designs without patents, but that's not how any industry I'm familiar with works; if they thought that obscurity was an option, they'd stick with it and just label it a trade secret!
The problem is the time has been repeatedly extended across the world to the point that society gets very little from this arrangement.
At this point we're better off removing the concept of IP entirely.
The assumption was the invention was something rare and hard, not something you could re-recrate from scratch in a week or evening (in case of software invention) or that patent is only filled to cast a wide net to block the competition
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent
In today's world patents are mostly dysfunctional, or straight malignant. They tend to slow, discourage progress and selectively aid large corporation who can afford the legal warfare. They have become also less informative, more vague, so really the bargain with the collective is off now.
Yeah, it has always amazed me that Ruf could market their own versions of the 911 without there being a design patent legal problem.
That is also legal, and if anything you'd own the copyright to those files.
> Except as otherwise provided in this title, whoever without authority makes, uses, offers to sell, or sells any patented invention, within the United States or imports into the United States any patented invention during the term of the patent therefor, infringes the patent.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/35/271
There seems to be no exception for personal use. A quick search shows apparent patent lawyers claiming personal use/manufacturing not to be permitted, either (I won't link it here, since it may or may not be SEO/AI spam). If I understand correctly, this is also evident by legal precedent regarding rights to repair (valid defense).
De facto it may be usually without consequences, since patent violations need to be called out by the offended party. If the patent holder is oblivious, nothing will happen. And since personal reproduction is likely not causing financial damages, you are likely only gonna be told to stop, I presume.
But it's still infringement and consequently you may get away with reproduction, but cannot talk about it.
Honestly, I couldn't believe it at first either. It seems wildly overstepping into personal freedom what you are allowed to make with your own hands for yourself. Especially since patents are now granted liberally for stuff borderline trivial, or not actually innovative, lacking thorough research.
Not sure about the tech aspect of 3D scanning or if that would be accurate enough; I don't have any experience there to draw on.
https://www.tomshardware.com/features/noctua-nf-a12x25-vs-to...
Noctua seems fine so long as you’re not copying the color scheme and branding. Interestingly TT had a 140mm version before Noctua. Noctua seems happy being the premium option.
3d models for industrial fan manufacturers (Sanyo,NMB) are widely available.
And is not like a 5axis could not produce these fan geometries from a block
They do. Their products are an example of a company refining a concept to an extreme degree to squeeze out as much performance as possible.
Kudos to them for releasing models useful for integration.
I happen to own a pair of Noctura fans, and wow! They are great, so I would assume that some heavy lifting was done in fluid flow.
I was just curious.
Crude copies with convincing appearance would tarnish their brand. Visibly crude copies stop performance data of such copies from being mistaken as representative of actual products.
It’d be a bit tricky since you wouldn’t really have a convenient spot for a planar parting line, but should be possible.
Broadly, it is just good training since you're normally _not_ going to have CAD drawings. If you do this enough, it becomes second nature, and with a 3D printer it's fast to make test prints which you can use to check your measurements against.
More specifically, it avoids having to wonder if you'd be breaching some law by using those CAD drawings to make a "derivative work". While there's nothing illegal about using precise tools to measure an existing product and create a CAD model. It's (apparently) a silly grey area to take measurements from a CAD representation of a product to make your own CAD model. It can be argued that you're just taking factual information from a reference and using it to produce your own design. But whenever you find yourself saying to yourself that something "can be argued" then you really need to take pause to consider if you want to find that out for yourself or avoid the problem entirely.
This is the same absurd nonsense that Prusa's "Open" Community License imposes. If I buy a Prusa 3D printer and I just carefully measure it (I don't find this that hard, and I am at best an amateur, consider what an experienced CAD designer could achieve with the right tools), I can create a 3D model of the printer and, as long as I've omitted any separable purely aesthetic elements, I own all rights to that 3D model.
Moreover, as long as there are no patents on the product, I can manufacture and sell it.
The hard part of cloning a product like a 3D printer or silent fan is not in getting the exact CAD model, it's in the choice and sourcing of materials, making the right tooling, finding places to make all the parts, etc.
There are also some secrets on how certain things are manufactured. But those either don't appear in the CAD model or can be easily omitted.
If manufacturers want to hand out CAD models of their products, they should do so under some highly permissive license, with only enough detail to actually aid in producing mods. The alternative where the license is restrictive, is that you're just giving out poisoned apples that solely restrict the freedoms of anyone who decides to take them.
Never finished it because I kept having to tweak and remeasure, but now I can definitely go back and finish it!
Example download: https://www.noctua.at/en/support/downloads?product=nf-a12x25...
There are fans that are cheaper that come close to noctua, but noctua are one of the best fans you can buy.
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