hydro bearing or ball bearing in cooling fan

[salty joe]

Just wondering if anyone knows if the hydro (oil filled) bearings on cooling fans are very durable. They are less expensive than ball bearings, but if they work as well...

I'll never buy another fan with a sleeve bearing to cool LEDs.

[salty joe]

Bumpity bump for someone to please share their experience with hydro bearings.

A lot of hard core LED builds by dedicated reefers-surely someone has experience with hydro bearings on cooling fans.

[Gorgok]

I hadn't ever bothered reading what a hydro bearing is (until this thread), as i don't think it matters that much... Life expectancy of the fans/bearings depends more on installation and location than the bearings themselves. Unless really abusing them i think anything will work for a long time.

I have not had a fan bearing of any kind ever fail on me for all that is worth... Had my LEDs now for 2.5 years with the fans always on and the computers i built run 24/7 as well... built plenty in the last 15 years.

I (apparently, had to look) choose fans with balls for myself, but i assume the other parts have other types of bearings in them as well.

[salty joe]

Well, I have had two out of four fans fail in less than 4 months. They have sleeve bearings and used to still spin if started by hand, they wont run at all now. There's quite a bit of resistance-what can I blame other than the bearing?

The fans are on my algae filter and alternate, so less than two months total run time. Anyway, if I don't get any positive feedback on hydro bearings, I'll get ball bearing fans to be sure.

[peterj66]

The difference is mainly in the mean time between failure. Ballbearing typically lasts alot longer than sleeve bearings.