The Meanwell power supply itself is actually really good. It just has a ridiculously noisy fan. Meanwell (the manufacturer) has said that they will customize it if asked, but Stern hasn't asked, I assume because it will raise the price of the power supply a little. And Stern's excuse that they need to use a fan with better CFM for edge cases like "a sunny laundromat window where the temps in summer are extreme for a pin" is ridiculous because the EDGE CASES should have to buy the louder fan version, so all the home and air conditioned locations can have the quiet fan. Build a quieter pin for the 99.98% of users and make the laundromat edge cases buy a heavy duty power supply. Don't punish everyone to cover your edge cases. Besides, the power supply has power throttling and a cutoff if the power supply gets to 158F, so failsafes are already built into the power supply. It's just Stern being lazy/cheap. Boo.

This graph shows the temp range for normal operation and then when it starts throttling, and by how much, and then the failsafe kicking in and cutting off power if the temp reaches 158F.
RSP 500-48_temp_graph (resized).jpg

I honestly don't even believe the edge case Gomez cited as the excuse for keeping the noisy stock higher CFM fan exists as more than a handful of cases, if that. When testing before release, I ran my quieter, lower CFM fans in a bar that was 90F indoors at times in the summer (no ac, they just opened the doors) for almost a year with constant temp monitoring inside both the head and inside the power supply casing (using dual probes) and never got close to even throttling to 80% load. My lower CFM fan turned on at 122F, cooled power supply back to 104F, fan turned off. Stern COULD do it, but I think it's the bean counters that are leaving the status quo and shifting the cost to change to a quieter fan to the end users. Boo.

Gomez did say another power supply is coming, but that was over 2 years ago, so we'll see.

I forgot to cross link a post I made about Stern recently changing the fans in these power supplies...for the worse. The new fans are cheaper/slightly louder. You can read details about that here:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/stern-finally-has-a-new-fan-in-their-spike2-power-supplies

The amount/type of silicone in the power supply varies WIDELY. I've personally done dozens of these now and sometimes the fan's wire is barely in the silicone, and other times it's BURIED. It's not hard to get the wire out at all as long as you're careful snipping into the silicone a little at a time, but I don't want to misrepresent that it's always dead simple. Really that's the only part of the install that can take a few minutes by itself if you get one that is BURIED in silicone.

Here's a comparison pic of two different pins (I've since figured out that you can get either type of silicone mass at any time. Seems to be pot luck, not tied to any particular years of manufacture):
Older_vs_2020_power_supply_goo_gone (resized).jpg

They are plug and play. I've had one fan failure reported - ever. They're very reliable, and I have the wire length customized at the factory, so it's the correct length with the connector already on.

There's no overheats possible because the power supply has built-in throttling that takes over if the power exceeds 122F and then cuts power completely if the power supply hits 158F. When I was developing this solution, I had dual probe continuous temp monitors inside the power supply and inside the backbox at a location that was in the 90s ambient temps in summer (bar with no A/C, just some fans) and it never exceeded the 122F where the fans kick on and bring the temp back to 104F or less.

Here's the temp management graph for the RSP500-48:
RSP 500-48_temp_graph (resized).jpg

As long as you know those digikey fans are bulk pack and have naked wire leads with no connector or protective shrink tubing. So you have to also buy the connector and pins to finish it, or cut it to the right length then splice it, solder it, and shrink tube it onto the lead from the existing fan so you get a connector, that would work.

You also need to get slightly wider thread-cutting screws as the holes on that fan are larger than the ones in the stock fan, so the two screws on the power supply cannot be used.

You don't want to remove the silicone completely, though. The goal is to get the wire running through the silicone out without removing all the silicone. Basically just carefully nip a line through the silicone following the path where you expect the wire to be and test lift, nip silicone, test lift, nip the silicone, etc until you can free the wire. Like this:
wire removal RSP500-48-sml (resized).jpg

It's just to hold the stuff in place and prevent buzz from vibration/movement. Also provides support/stability so components that may expand/contract or vibrate don't break loose over time.

And yeah, the amount of silicone used is all over the place. Some of the ones I've done have like little dots here and there, while others are giant globby messes.

Certainly an option, but the reason I made this DIY and then offered an even less work plug and play quiet fan kit is for people that want a factory look. The noctua external bezel idea absolutely works, but doesn't look close to factory and isn't self-contained with the external power requirement. In my experience the majority of people want a clean, factory look for the power supply fan replacement.

But, both methods are documented in this thread (and the external larger fan with external bezel DIY ideas keyposted for easy location), so whatever way any one person wants to go, the information is here.

The instructions of the kit are very step-by-step. I've sold a lot over more than 3 years and there are zero install failures I'm aware of. There was one bad fan, but that wasn't an install failure.

If you have a #2 philips screwdriver, 11/32" socket, and some precision cutters (for jewelry or small gauge wires, etc) the instructions will walk you through it carefully.

Cary Hardy did an install video (even though he skipped the check your work step at the end) of one he bought: