TODAY the CHEATER FALLS……maybe | Fan Showdown S4E5

Summary

In this episode of Fan Showdown, Major Hardware reviews four custom fan designs: Tom’s Cyber Eye, Flow’s Second to None, Sam’s Emotional Damage, and Nate’s complex Overdrive. The episode mixes sponsor talk, build explanations, assembly, testing, and a little friendly competition against the long-reigning “cheater” fan. The Overdrive is the most ambitious project, featuring two configurations: direct drive and an overdrive setup using planetary gears to boost speed. After careful assembly and testing, direct drive proves to be the stronger option, delivering the best airflow of the group. In the smoke test, Second to None and the Overdrive in direct drive mode perform especially well, while Emotional Damage lands last. The results shuffle the overall leaderboard, but the cheater still remains the benchmark to beat.

Highlights

• Tom’s Cyber Eye looks like a jet engine and earns instant style points ✈️
• Flow’s Second to None focuses on smooth edges to reduce turbulence and noise 🌊
• Sam’s Emotional Damage is a sharp, meme-inspired design with serious finger-danger vibes 😬
• Nate’s Overdrive includes detailed instructions and two modes for testing different performance ideas 🛠️
• Direct drive hits 626 feet per minute in the smoke test and takes first place 🚀
• The episode ends with a new overall leaderboard shake-up across the season 📊

Key Takeaways

• The Overdrive fan is the most mechanically complex design, with dual configurations and planetary gears ⚙️
• Direct drive beat overdrive mode because it spun faster and moved more air 💨
• Second to None lived up to its smooth, performance-focused design and scored well 🔥
• Emotional Damage looked wild and ended up at the bottom of the test list 😅
• The cheater fan is still the boss everyone wants to dethrone 👑

Overview

Major Hardware kicks off the episode with a sponsor message and then moves into another round of Fan Showdown, where creators submit custom fan designs for testing. The lineup includes a jet-engine-inspired Cyber Eye, a smooth and performance-minded Second to None, a meme-based Emotional Damage, and the highly engineered Overdrive. Each fan brings a different personality and design philosophy to the table, making the showcase as fun to watch as it is technical.

The most interesting build is Nate’s Overdrive fan, which is designed to challenge the long-standing champion known as the cheater. It can be assembled in two modes: direct drive and a geared overdrive setup. After putting it together and tuning the bearings, the host tests both versions and finds that direct drive actually performs better, because the geared version loses too much speed under load.

The final testing phase compares noise and airflow across all four fans. While the differences in sound are fairly close, the smoke test creates a clear ranking: direct drive Overdrive comes out on top, followed by Second to None, Cyber Eye, and Emotional Damage. The episode wraps with an updated season leaderboard and a reminder for viewers who want to build and submit their own fan design.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 02:30: Intro, PC Troubles, and Fan Showdown Setup The creator opens by joking about recent PC upgrade troubles, saying the new power supply seems to have stabilized things, then shifts into the start of Fan Showdown Season 4, Episode 5. A sponsor segment for Micro Center highlights their PC hardware, 3D printer selection, online shopping options, and a new-customer Ender 3 Pro coupon.
• 02:30 - 05:00: Tom’s Cyber Eye Fan Reveal Tom introduces several fan designs and comments that the Flow fan’s smooth edges and slopes are intended to reduce turbulence and noise, making it seem like a strong performer worth watching in testing.
• 05:00 - 07:30: Flow’s Second to None and Emotional Damage Designs The host introduces the Overdrive fan as a contender against the final boss, the cheater, and explains its two configurations: direct drive and overdrive. Direct drive spins the fan hub directly, while overdrive uses planetary gears to increase the main fan’s RPM and airflow. Nate tested both setups and found overdrive actually slower than the A12x25, but it still works and is ready to be assembled.
• 07:30 - 10:00: Nate’s Overdrive Concept and Assembly Planning Nate explains modifying the fan bearings for the overdrive setup by removing the factory thick grease and replacing it with thinner oil to reduce drag and help the fan spin more easily. He then begins assembly of the overdrive mode, showing the fan mount, planetary gear mount with bearings, the two planetary gears, and the outer ring that the gears drive against. He notes the tighter outer ring should leave more open space for airflow compared with earlier designs.
• 10:00 - 12:30: Building the Overdrive and Bearing Prep The speaker tests the overdrive setup by checking the shaft speed, then installs the fan key onto the shaft and notes how well the parts fit together. After comparing the overdrive configuration with direct drive mode, they observe that direct drive produces a higher RPM, though it is a bit louder. Based on this, they decide to run the fan in direct drive mode for the tests because it should move the most air.
• 12:30 - 15:00: Testing Overdrive in Direct Drive Mode The fan showdown smoke test compares several fans and records their airflow results. Overdrive in direct drive mode performs best at 626 feet per minute, narrowly beating Second to None at 624, with Cyber Eye at 531 and Emotional Damage at 490.
• 15:00 - 17:30: Noise, Smoke Test Results, and Wrap-Up The segment wraps up the fan project by directing viewers to the creator’s Thingiverse account for the drawings and required dimensions to ensure the model fits the A12 x25 frame. It instructs participants to complete their model and submit at least an STL file to the specified Gmail address, then ends with a casual sign-off and a joke about the floating head presentation.

TODAY the CHEATER FALLS……maybe | Fan Showdown S4E5 Transcription

• Segment 1: 00:00 - 02:30 man just kidding everything's been fingers crossed everything's been working pretty good ever since i put the next new power supply in there so hopefully nothing changes anytime soon but never mind that we're not really here to discuss my misadventures when it comes to upgrading a pc uh that was that was that was fun let me tell you but anyway today it's time for another fan showdown season four episode five and you might notice there's more than four fans here we got gears thank you to microcenter for sponsoring today's video micro center is one of the best places to shop for all your technology needs and if you're like me you might even live within driving distance to a micro center location having a micro center nearby has saved my bacon more than once most notably that one time i fried my gpu while trying to build that custom shroud remember that yeah now micro center is probably most well known for its pc hardware but they also carry 3d printers and i'll be honest i didn't even know this until the last time i was walking through microcenter looking for some pc cooling hardware and happened to notice all the filament and printers they had in stock micro center is actually one of the only places you can find a wide selection of 3d printers and materials but not everyone is easily able to drive to a micro center location but that's not a problem you can browse all of their parts online at microcenter.com and if you prefer you can even shop the microsoft or amazon store to pick up all the filament you need however if you do have a micro center nearby they are currently offering a 99 coupon towards an ender 3d pro this is a no purchase necessary offer to new customers in store only so if you're wanting to get into 3d printing check out microcenter.com or
• Segment 2: 00:00 - 02:30 head into one of your local stores today and thank you again to microcenter for sponsoring today's video i hope you guys can see me with my every time i wear this i make a stupid camouflage joke anyway we're going to start with uh tom today and tom's fan cyber eye tom said he made this fan a while back and decided you know what it's time to send it into the fan showdown the cybereye was inspired by tom's favorite anime which i will admit i really know nothing about but when i saw this thing for the first time i immediately thought ge9x which is a massive high bypass turbofan jet engine made by ge aviation and if you have no idea what that means it's the big chunky boy you see underneath the boeing triple seven specifically the dash eight and the dash nine now tom said he doesn't have any specific performance expectations in mind with this thing he just thought it looked cool which i
• Segment 3: 02:30 - 05:00 concur it does looks like a jet engine and anytime anything looks like a jet engine it's plus five charisma guaranteed next up we have flow in their fan second to none shots fired with that name however though when i when i read the name but when people send me these fans they send me the files and when i the fans called second to numb when i read the file name it was actually second to none third edition so what's that mean anyways flo said that the idea behind this fan was to put all that centrifugal force that the air experiences while passing through the fan to work the fan was designed in a way to reduce as much turbulence as possible and also noise and the way that flow went around or went about doing this was to try and smooth every edge and slope on the fan to make everything as smooth as possible the end result in my opinion is a fan that looks to me like it's going to be a good performer we've said it before you can kind of for all of us that have done this show or watch this show many times you can pretty much look at a fan at this point and be like i think that'll be pretty good and i think this is one of those let's keep our eye out on the smoke test to see exactly how it performs but i like it now from smooth edges and slopes to a fan that looks like the actual word pain this is the emotional damage and it was created by sam i don't know about you but when i first looked at this fan the first word that came to mind was ouch just imagining my fingers finding their way into the fan as i was testing it but it does look cool too now sam didn't say much about this fan or what inspired it inspired it all he did was kind of he sent a link along with it that that was a link to a meme the emotional damage meme emotional damn it
• Segment 4: 02:30 - 05:00 gonna be honest i don't really know much about that meme uh i might be just getting rick rolled i don't know if you know if you can see the symbolism between emotional damage name and this design make sure let me know in the comments because i'm pretty lost on this one now i have saved the most complex fan for last this series of parts in front of me is the overdrive all this stuff one fan two configurations the overdrive was created by nate and the overdrive has one singular goal in mind and that is to finally dethrone the cheater and if you're new here you're like what is the cheater the cheater is a fan that's been in first place since last season and at this point it almost looks unbeatable no longer are we trying to beat the a12 x25 that ship sailed like
• Segment 5: 05:00 - 07:30 eons ago now we're just trying to beat the final boss which is the cheater now before we get in to the overdrive and it's two configurations which yeah that was correct it has two different configurations that it can be set up in we need to talk about the the impressive assembly instructions that were sent with it i you not i've seen less details on engineering drawings at work now given how well-written the assembly instructions were i'm pretty confident that this fan should work at least function as designed but will it beat the cheater i don't know that's a pretty it's a pretty good score to take down now as i said the overdrive has two configurations one is called direct drive and one is called overdrive the direct drive is pretty much what it sounds like the fan hub the hub of the a12x25 directly drives the fan disk now the overdrive mode is a bit more interesting in that mode the hub of the a12 x25 what was that the hub of the a12x25 actually drives two planetary gears which and then in turn drive the main fan and the idea here is we're trying to increase the rpm of the main fan to you know increase airflow now nate did go on to say that he tested this configuration he tested the direct drive and the overdrive and said that the overdrive was slower in rpm to the a12 x25 given the limitations of this the fan itself not really the torqueiest fan motor in the world i don't think they ever i don't think noctua ever thought that this was going to be its future no we did not but he did say that he tested it so that must mean that it works so before we pick which configuration is the best gives this fan the best chance to beat the massive cheater we first got to put it together and see if it works or see how it works at this point all right
• Segment 6: 05:00 - 07:30 here are all of our parts for the overdrive fan and nate went into great detail on every piece that he needed to print and what percentage infill he wanted them all printed in which i did i made sure to follow his directions to the tee and also you might notice that there's a bearing here that's because i needed to purchase some bearings for this assembly i already have them put into the fan blades because they did need a little bit of prep before they're ready to use per nate's instruction the original bearings do have like a shield on them they're shielded bearings and they're full they're already full of some grease and what i need to do first was remove the shield which was a little tricky because these little tiny bearings have a retaining ring that must be reinstalled or the ball bearings just kind of escape
• Segment 7: 07:30 - 10:00 and whoever they want so i removed the shield and then i sprayed all the old grease or all the the packed grease out with some brake cleaner and replaced it with some of my favorite little gun oils and you might be wondering why would you remove the grease from a bearing and the whole idea here is the grease that comes with these bearings is its viscosity is really high so it actually it's actually harder for the bearing to spin with that thick grease in there and since the fan already has a rough time spinning pretty much anything other than a fan disc if you take all that grease out and replace it with thinner grease it works better in this situation so for the assembly now for let's go to the we'll do the overdrive mode first just to see if it works as advertised so this is obviously the back side of the fan much the same as the cheater so the fan is going to mount in it like that this is the planetary gear mount which has the bearings already inserted into it and i will say that the fitment on these bearings top notch i really like it these are the two planetary gears that will insert into the bearings again you can tell that nate did his homework everything fits together beautifully the next thing that we have so this is one of the things that nate hopes improves the airflow this is the outer ring that the planetary gears are going to drive against and you might remember from previous designs this was much larger and nate is hoping that since he's shrunk this down we're going to have more area or more space for the air to flow past the planetary gears so they may be you know that's hopefully going to
• Segment 8: 07:30 - 10:00 produce more air flow because in the past you have giant gears on the outside which are essentially blocking your airflow this part is going to hold our drive gear which is going to go in between these two planetary gears like this it's going to go through this bearing i believe it goes let me look at the little directions here i think it goes like this so the gear needs to go in like so and this is where we got to be careful so we have to be able to position it between the gears perfectly because if not you know as it spins it's going to want to move the fan around so we need to try to make sure we're centered as possible so you might move it around a little bit to see how it functions you see how the fan kind of moves around that we need to adjust it a little bit a little a little bit a little bit of oil on these gears just because they kind of touch kind of touch each other and up top so i'm just going to hold this in position for now to see exactly how well that spins when it's being powered okay here we go
• Segment 9: 10:00 - 12:30 it's working i wonder what the rpm of just that shaft is we know the rpm of the a12 x25 is 2000 so let's see obviously when we put the fan disc on there the load is going to slow it down but let's see if that little little shaft spins more in 2000 21 26 so it is over 2000 rpms but um we all know as soon as i put that fan on there that's gonna drop substantially so we'll see we'll see how she goes so now the fan keys on to the shaft which again so satisfying everything fits together no slop pretty impressive and there you go there's your final piece come on right there is it going you definitely hear that it's slower though we'll measure the rpm here in a second before we do that i'll show you how the direct drive mode goes i'm pretty sure that's what we'll be using for this fan so direct drive mode has similar hub but the fan mount is right there we skipped this whole deal and just is fan and intake shroud oh yeah and a lot quieter okay so in direct drive mode you can see our target is right there on the hub let's see what kind of speeds we're putting down 17 we could say probably about 1 730 rpm come on baby there it goes give a little help there it is a little louder a little slower let's say 670 rpm so given that the direct drive mode produces more rpm
• Segment 10: 10:00 - 12:30 than the uh the overdrive mode we'll we'll run the tests we'll we'll put it up against the cheater indirect drive mode give the best chance of moving the most air possible the overdrive in direct drive mode came in at 49.6 dba the cyber eye came in at 47.6 dba the emotional damage came in at 51.2 dba and the second to none came in at 49.5 dba
• Segment 11: 12:30 - 15:00 so so far they're all pretty similar they're not the s they're not the quietest fans we've ever seen on the show they're not the most loud fan we've ever heard in the show but they're all kind of right in there but let's see exactly how they stack up in the smoke test [Music] [Music] [Music] let's see exactly how they all stacked up the cyber eye came in at 531 feet per minute the emotional damage came in at 490 feet per minute the second to none came in at 624 feet per minute and the overdrive in overdrive mode came in at 330 feet per minute and in direct drive mode came in at 626 feet per minute placing the overdrive in direct drive mode in first place the second to none in second place the cyber eye in third place and the emotional damage in fourth overall though we do have a bit of a shake up on the board the overdrive placed fourth place overall the second to none place six the cyber eye is an 11th and the emotional damage is in 15th so thank you all for watching i hope you enjoyed another one of our fan showdown videos if you want to get involved in the fan showdown head down to the description
• Segment 12: 15:00 - 17:30 below there'll be links to everything you need everything you need to know in order to produce a fan to be on the show in a nutshell what you need to do is go to my thingiverse account pull down the drawings for the specific dimensions you need to hit to make sure it fits on the a12 x25 frame and then once your model's complete send me at least an stl file to the fan showdown at gmail.com we'll see you next time how'd you like the floating head talk to you the whole time see ya