Hi everyone,
The fan of my TM5003 is a bit loud and it has a "rattling" component into it.
This is not as bad as a TM5006, but still quite loud.
That would be ok for a professional or industrial setting, but not for my home bench in a basement.
Photos are here:
/g/TekScopes/album?id=65073 In fact, TM5003 and TM5006 use the same fan model: a 75CFM at 115VAC (Tek part 119-0721-00), see service manuals.
However, TM5006 with racking options (option 12), uses a 105CFM instead.
So it is quite over-rated for the TM5003 which has only 3 slots, versus the 5 "regular" slots plus 1 high powered compartment of the TM5006.
And I guess we can without issue use a 50CFM fan instead, that's still 2/3 of 75.
I managed to find an almost exact match (~76CFM at 50Hz and ~67CFM at 60Hz), but with lower noise of course (32db) :
The swap was actually quite easy, just unscrew everything, unplug the fan wires.
Cut the wires from the old fan, resolder to the new one. Plug back everything, fasten all screws.
See photos.
The end result is a bit mixed :(
It is a bit quieter, in particular, the rattling component of the fan noise is gone. That's a new fan after all!
However, I thought that 32db was quieter than that.
To give you an idea, the noise is now about the same as a loud desktop PC with all its fans at max speed.
I must have read something wrong about how quiet 32db is.
Maybe my expectation were too much.
Or the replacement fan doesn't meet its 32db specification!
Or a mix of all of the above :)
The original fan is from "Whisperer" brand. And it is indeed quieter than the TM5006 I've owned
It has a May 92 date on it, so my TM5003 is not that old.
Probably, the biggest issue, is that the fan is not temperature controlled.
So it always runs at max speed, moving tons of air.
All in all, there is still some improvement, so I'm happy. And I had fun.
If I were to do it again, I'll probably go for a 50CFM from a more "high end" brand (ebm papst?)
Best regards,
