Silencing the loud Aputure C300D

Also in case anyone is interested, the $40 NG-10X fresnel does NOT LOCK into the front of this light.
I mean, it does not fit into the locking bowens mount because the lip of the NG-10X doesn't allow enough depth for the lock to engage.

However, you can fit it into the ring ABOVE the locking part if you angle it correctly. It is not locked into place but it probably won't fall out unless you rotate the main body, so it "kind of" works.
 
Erik Naso said:
Ha! Well the battery option is nice to have and if you go with batteries then you don't need the Ballast or the two cables, but I can't run all my lights on them. I would be charging $2K worth of batteries all day.
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I noticed there are different pin out versions of a 4-pin xlr, is there a specific one you purchased that was 20 ft? Can you possibly provide a link?
 
Having bought 3 HR672 a couple of years ago or so, I am not impressed with Aputure engineering skills(*). They do the feature list quite well, and the products do look nice, but some stupid design choices have led me to wait for substantial corpus of reviews before buying another high-end product from them. And now I see that the QA is also nothing to be proud of.

I am really excited about the 300D, but I doubt that the long delay in releasing the product is due to some re-engineering effort.
Hopefully the next product in their COB line will be more appropriately designed. Waiting for NAB 2018 and the reviews during summer 2018.

(*) the on-off switch on the HR672 does not disconnect the internal charging circuitry, so the batteries are dead after a couple of days if the unit is stores with the batteries installed. Removing the batteries after each power off will destroy the cheap connector pins after a few hundereds cycles. Adding a simple switch on the back of the unit would have solved the problem.
 
scotchtape said:
The Aputure 300D is falsely advertised as "quiet" 18db fan light. Meanwhile the PSU that has to be relatively close by is probably over 35db. The actual fan is 30db but the way it is positioned in the PSU pushing air through the metal nooks and crannies makes it even louder, not to mention the stock fan whines/hums at annoying frequencies (I got the fan specs direct from the manufacturer, mean well). It's literally louder than my relatively quiet PC (which has 4 fans, the largest Noctua CPU air cooler and a 1080ti) it's about as bad as having a mini fridge in the room...

So what to do? One thing that I did not try is to replace the stock fan with a quieter one. The quietest fan that I found was 23db pushing around the same 20cfm, about 7db quieter. However the design of PSU definitely has no regards to acoustics and I didn't think that would really fix the problem. The other problem is getting that fan would be $20 for a 60mm fan, which I didn't want to pay considering how loud it was.

I didn't think putting it in a box would really help anything since I would need to cut out holes for airflow, and in my preliminary attempts nothing really helped since the sound just leaked out.

What I ended up doing to "fix" the problem was to remove the stock fan and top casing of the PSU, and place it in a toolbox with a very quiet 120mm noctua fan. This makes the PSU even quieter than the head while providing 40cfm vs the stock 20cfm airflow. Do note that the stock setup uses the casing as a heatsink, so I'm not sure what the effects of not having it are. I did test the stock and new setup for 1h @ 100% output and measured the interior "heat sink" part that contacted the case. Stock measured 47C after an hour, modified measured 43C. My ambient is around 24C.

The downsides are of course the fact that you have to make this, and open up the PSU of your >$1K light. Also your PSU is now very large and sits inside a toolbox, which takes up about 3-4 times the space of the already not small PSU, not to mention awkwardly connecting the power cables. On the plus side it has a handle on top now. Also since it's 16 inches I can leave the cables plugged in and store them in the front few inches of space. Not sure where to put it though since it definitely won't fit in the original case.

Here's what I did.
Photos here: https://imgur.com/a/C5aNM
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1) Remove top of PSU (x2)
- Remove the six screws of the black Aputure PSU
- 2 are holding the bar in front of the connectors.
- 4 are holding the case together.
- NOT the small screws near the webbing, that holds the webbing on.

- Then gently peel back the black webbing around the sides of the PSU.
- There are 4 screws, two on each side that hold it together (you will see more screws but it's kind of obvious which ones hold it together, the 2 bigger ones on the ends).
- There is one screw at the top of the mean well PSU near the front grills, peel back the black webbing as opposed to the thermal compound to unscrew it.

Now you should be able to take the top off the PSU, remember to remove the fan connector as the fan is connected to the top casing.

2) Toolbox
- I got around a 16x7x5.5 toolbox. Basically you want it to be big enough for the PSU and fan to fit in, but not too big. Actually you can get whatever box you want, but this was the most economical and functional I could think of (considering custom plastic boxes were like $70+).
- I drilled 4 holes for the 120mm fan mount
- I dremeled/routed out the fan hole roughly (it don't look pretty because I don't have the proper tools unfortunately).
- Obviously on the other end you need an exhaust port and somewhere to plug in the cables.

3) Fan
- You will need to create a connector for the fan since the connector used on the PSU is one of those JST type connectors. If you have no experience with this... well you better buy a whole bunch of them because you're bound to break a few making the connector. The "easiest" way to do this is get a $1 3pin y connector on eBay, or 3pin fan extension cable. Connect one end to the fan, and the other you can use for the JST connector.

The fan I had from a previous build was the Noctua NF-S12A ULN. You can pick a different fan from here: https://www.quietpc.com/120mmfans if you want. This one pushes 43.7cfm @ 8.6DB.
If you need more airflow the Nanoxia ones aren't bad for the price either. The stock is about 20cfm and 30db.

4) Putting it together
Obviously mount the fan so the air blows over the exposed parts of the PSU and secure the PSU so it doesn't move around. I angled my PSU up so there's more airflow over it. To secure it, I simply used the cover we took off as a template and marked off two holes on each side. Then I used M4 sized screws to secure the PSU inside the toolbox (M4 is the size of the existing threads). You will want something to protect the fan, so get a fan grill. Alternatively you could just drill like 50 holes instead of one big fan hole, but I was too lazy and wasn't sure how quiet that would be.


Now it's quiet as a mouse and quieter than the fans in the head of the unit, but with the aforementioned downsides. Depending on your needs this is might not work due to the extra care needed when handling the PSU. Works for me in my one man band since I know I'll take care of it.

I'm pretty disappointed with Aputure mainly due to the marketing. Yeah the light is mostly fine despite the green tint on the side issue, good output, price, light quality yadda yadda, but what the fudge is with the false advertising. There is NO WAY this light is anywhere CLOSE to being QUIET. This is the last time I'm buying Aputure stuff early. Why couldn't you guys just make a slightly bigger PSU casing, and basically do what I did except 100x better? And then why did you advertise this light as being close to silent when that is definitely not the case? You know a lot of us small guys don't have the budget for a crew, so making our lives even harder by trying to deal with the noise issue is not helping us!

//References to the 18db have been scrubbed from the newer marketing, fine, but initial marketing had this all over, news shooter old post still references this, and other retail sites as well. Also still marketed as "quiet"

I get that if you're shooting outside or with a big crew or big studio it's not a big deal to work around this issue, but I bought it specifically thinking it was going to be "18db quiet" to use for close lighting corporate interviews. Was not expecting +35db PSU unit.

Sorry for the angry rant but if I had known it was going to be this loud I would have looked for a different option and saved myself the trouble. I bought this early on eBay and can't really return it. Tried selling it on CL but zero inquiries after a week and I just gave up and "fixed" it myself.

Parts list:
Toolbox ~15 (or more, up to you depending on quality and material)
Noctua Fan ~20
120mm Fan grill ~7 (4 for $7)
Connectors ~5
Various screws etc, M4 size for case screws.
I used 1.5inch 6-32 machine screws to secure the fan and grill

Tools:
Drill and bits
Dremel and router bit

Other notes:
Stock PSU is Mean Well RSP-320-27
Presumably if you can find another 27V powersupply >320V that is silent that could work too.
I tried looking but couldn't find a good option.
Fan is Minbrea 2404KL-04W-B30
It's a 12V fan so basically any computer can should work since they're mainly 12V.
Might consider adding noctua fans to the head as well.
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Hey! Looking at the breakdown, does the 4 pin xlr plug have 4 wires connected to it or just 2??
 
Wow, I am NOT buying one of these after reading this thread. Any piece of "pro" production gear you have to mod so heavily to simply be usable in the field is a flawed purchase.
 
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nyvz said:
I guess that's true, it's relatively cheap compared to the competition but it is the fanciest light Aputure makes, and they upped their game in the past year or two, you'd hope their big new flagship didn't have any big drawbacks..

Guess it'll be a while before I can replace my $200 575W HMI pars, they seem to have all three in a way that's pretty hard to come by. Can't be battery powered or smoothly dimmed though or packed up until given a few minutes to cool...
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What 575W HMI pars do you own that only cost 200$?
 
The stock fan seems to be 13.7CFM as opposed to the 20CFM scotchtape was looking for (which might make the search a little easier). And it seems there are a few 60mm fans that put that out at 10-12db. Even though the PSU enclosure itself doesn't have good airflow design, this is could equate to a 17-19db reduction right off the bat as opposed to the 7. At least at the fan. Wondering if those increased gains might be worth a first try before resorting to an enclosure rework.

Also, a quick question: was there any room around the fan internally or was that a tight fit? For instance, would an 80mm fit in there by any chance?
 
emkay said:
The stock fan seems to be 13.7CFM as opposed to the 20CFM scotchtape was looking for (which might make the search a little easier). And it seems there are a few 60mm fans that put that out at 10-12db. Even though the PSU enclosure itself doesn't have good airflow design, this is could equate to a 17-19db reduction right off the bat as opposed to the 7. At least at the fan. Wondering if those increased gains might be worth a first try before resorting to an enclosure rework.

Also, a quick question: was there any room around the fan internally or was that a tight fit? For instance, would an 80mm fit in there by any chance?
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I got fan specs directly from manufacturer. Space is tight and height is limited.
 
I just stuck mine in the case and closed the lid most of the way , not all the way and added a 6 foot cable extension with the opening away mic and it is enough to be barely audible
 
verzap said:
I just stuck mine in the case and closed the lid most of the way , not all the way and added a 6 foot cable extension with the opening away mic and it is enough to be barely audible
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I'd caution against that... It needs cool air so it doesn't overheat. If it didn't need to be cooled they wouldn't have put a fan on the PSU in the first place.
 
Just doing some tests now and thought I’d post a few things. The most important thing to note is that modifying your unit is something that should be done carefully and with hesitation as scotchtape has mentioned. For my mod, I went down the route of finding a fan with the same diameter and airflow, but with the lowest noise spec. Unfortunately I couldn't find anything quiet with the same depth. During my mod I discovered that there is a resistor in the wire assembly for the fan, so the minimum airflow we’re looking for may in fact be lower than the full spec for the stock fan. Which means there “might” be a fan out there that would fit inside but I that would require more testing/searching/fan buying. It’s also worth noting that the meanwell PSU has overtemperature Protection. So this might protect us from ourselves, though I’d still yield to caution with anything involved in these types of modifications!

Here’s the fan mount system I came up with in case anyone’s interested. Completely non-destructive which was important at this stage (no holes, cut wires, broken bits necessary). Though I don't feel it's necessary, a larger fan could be mounted partially inside with some machining in the future. Currently seems to run 2-3 degrees warmer due to the slightly restricted airflow path, so will continue to test this. But best of all, still fits in the case for portability and uses the nice enclosure as is.

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