Muffin Fan when I heard Muffin it reminded me of Raspberry muffin with a dollop of cream cheese on top with a fresh raspberry onto the cream cheese. Beautiful!! Hmm sounds delicious but guess what, I am a Muffin Fan, but here is the lampoon about the Muffin fans, we are not talking about the edible Muffins here and their fans who love eating muffins.
The origin of the name Muffin Fans is unknown, but in the FIRST community a muffin fan refers to the fans that come in the kit of parts. Muffin fans can be used to cool things such as motors.
Cooling Electronics Fans with Square Frame from 2" to 8"
Rotron, Nidec Torin, Commonwealth, Howard Ind., and other small electric fans for industrial and commercial purposes, can also be used as personal coolers to circulate and distribute and boost air in room or HVAC ventilation system. These fans are also used to cool electronics, reduce computer heat, ham radio equipment, TV camera, copy machine, electronic control box, HI-FI stereo, overhead projection & audio visual, recording, telephone, surveillance, medical, dental, rack electronic equipment, vending machines, office equipment, spot cooling and much more. These fans can be used in small or tight fit areas when to cool just about anything.
There are cheap muffin fans with BUSHINGS that are exposed to dirt/dust and don't last very long and there are expensive muffin fans with sealed permanently lubricated BALL BEARINGS that will outlast the computer. The bearing fans also have another advantage over bushing fans in that they will howl (but still work) for about a year before failing.
If you buy a brand new computer and found a cheap bushing type
muffin fan best would be to replace it immediately as they tend to fail silently and cause expensive damage without warning
Currently, muffin fans, like you find in computer power supplies and mounted in computer cases as well as other electronic gear, is manufactured in a manner that makes them unserviceable. They eventually get fouled with dust and other airborne particulates which cause the fan to "gum up" and stop working. If they could be cleaned, their lifetime would be considerably longer. If you try to take one apart they simply break. If you try to clean them by soaking in even with the most exotic solvents, they don't get clean enough to work very long (assuming they get any cleaner at all). They just plain are not cleanable and they must be replaced.
If a muffin fan were manufactured such that it could be disassembled and re-assembled without destroying it, its life could be greatly extended. Probably won't happen because the muffin fan makers would suffer reduced sales. However, a muffin fan cost $22 to replace about ten years ago, while today it cost $13. One would gladly pay more for one that could be cleaned and get more lifetime out of it.
