Spring has sprung at DRN HQ and at least for today, the weather is lovely. Forward planning to the Aussie summer, we have the Marchpower 100-Speed Portable Clip On Fan on the review bench.
I thought this will come in useful when the weather warms up.
What is it?
The Marchpower 100-Speed Portable Clip On Fan is exactly what the name says it is. A portable fan on a giant clip.
The fan is 13.5cm across with a large LED touch panel dominating the front. It has complete 360° rotation both horizontally and vertically.
On the bottom of the fan unit is a USB-C charging port to a 4000 mAh battery. Depending on the speed setting, it is rate for between 2.5 to 16 hours of operating time.
The Ultimate Convenience in a Portable Unit
Marchpower has designed the Clip On Fan for convenience.
It is hard to miss the giant clip attached to the fan. Inside the jaws it is lined with anti-slip and anti-scratch sponges. It opens to a generous 5.5cm which gives lots of options for clipping it on.
There is also a keyhole opening on the clip which makes it easy to hang off a wall hook, or hang off a tent or any other stable structure.
Weighing in at 550g, it is light enough to pack in for any trip.
Effortless Operation for a Cool Breeze
Controls on the Clip On Fan is simple. There are only four controls which are labelled on the front of the fan.
On the East West axis are the On and Off buttons well, turns the unit on and off. But they both double as a speed control.
Tapping on the ^On and vOff buttons will change the speed in increments of 10 steps. Holding the button down will cycle the numbers sequentially, you just let go when it gets to the speed you want.
The timer button is in the South position, and you can set it from one to nine hours and it will automatically turn off. This is ideal on a hot summer night and you need the air to move around the room to get some relief.
The North position is what Marchpower call the Natural Breeze Setting, which changes the airflow by varying the fan speed.
Marchpower claims a noise level between 53 to 63 dB. I find that there is a noise, almost like a low rattle, when it is running. It is definitely audible as the unit is running,.
If you happen to run low on battery, you can still run the fan when it is charging.
What Could Be Better
I want to dive into a few things I noticed before talking about fan noise.
When you operating the control buttons, it makes a beeping noise. Ordinarily it is not loud, but in the quiet of the night it is. If you are intending to use it in a child’s room then be aware of it.
Marchpower talk about a fine mesh cover design to prevent accidental contact with the fan blades. This is true for the back of the fan, but not so much for the front. The gap in front is big enough for my 7 year old daughter to slip her finger through.
Fan noise. It is not the quietest fan, nor is it the noisiest. I counted seven fan blades which is higher than the typical four or five blades you find in ceiling and pedestal fans.
In theory the more blades there are, the slower a fan can run to move the same amount of air which leads to quieter operation. There are other considerations of course, such as blade design and pitch, quality of model, and length of the fan blades.
In a portable desk fan, the length of the fan blade is limited by portability. The Clip On Fan has quite a steep pitch which helps to move larger volumes of air despite the blade length limit.
The other variable is the shape of the blade. Without disassembling the unit, I can’t see the shape of the blade, There may be optimisation possible there, although it would likely to have little genuine gain in noise reduction.
Thanks for listening to this TED talk, I love aerodynamics.
Final Verdict
If you are expecting a whisper quiet desk fan, then the Marchpower 100-Speed Portable Clip On Fan is not what you are looking for.
But as a versatile and highly portable fan, it delivers the goods. It is fairly effective at moving air around, but don’t expect it to cool down a room. If you do need a little extra oomph, there is always the putting a tray of icecubes in front of the fan trick.
The Marchpower 100-Speed Portable Clip On Fan is available from Amazon Au for just A$50.99. It will cheaper to run than a split air unit this coming sunmmer.
DRN would like to thank Marchpower for providing the review unit.
