Small, light, effective fan shrouds for popular hotend designs

cooling fan

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/29/2017 10:36AM by 3dprinterscart.

I don't print with PLA, only ABS and PET. I don't know if fans will help with those filaments. Do they?

They'll help with bridges and overhangs sure, how much I wouldn't be able to tell you. I run my fans at the minimum speed throughout abs prints its about 17% fan speed.

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Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

Thanks!

Overhangs at, or over, 45 degrees will almost always curl without instant cooling. Its really material dependant though. Colorfabb nGen can print really good overhangs with no cooling. PLA almost always needs cooling but I've got some generic chinese white PLA that does really well without any cooling.

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cwaa
I have only been printing for about 1 1/2 years, but still haven't used a cooling fan. Why do you use them?

Are you able to print a 3DBenchy w/o cooling fans? Maybe at lower speed I could but printing at 40mm or higher, with PLA, I need a fan or bow gets uneven. I also get less oozing with cooling fans.

New fan shroud design.... This time more compact! Same 40mm blower fans, with a DC42 IR sensor mount. Don't really use the sensor personally, but I do have one lying around and one day i'll put it to use....

This mount shaves off around 20-30mm of width compared to the last mount, and requires no mounting screws / clips. It is simply a circular mount that you slip on, and then becomes sandwiched between the heatsink and extruder. I've had no problems with a titan so far, and I imagine it will work with most groove mount systems. The fans will need 8x m2 screws, and the heatsink fan uses the existing e3d plastic screws.

The fan shrouds themselves are fairly basic, they sit about 2mm away from the heat block at the closest, and 1mm higher then the nozzle tip. This is about as close as you'd want to get to deliver airflow I think. The openings of the shroud sit below the heat block, so it shouldn't cool it too much but I'd still probably suggest a silicone sleeve or other insulation if you plan to push these... My experiments with these fans in the past show that anything above 30-40% will cause thermal runaway. good ducting and insulation has solved this for me though, and I can comfortably push them at 100% (as long as you're not too close to heat bed of course.)




The mount so far has been printed and works fine but need to test the shrouds. If there's interest in this I'll release the files.

Great minds think alike!





I do like using the cube design for mounting things around the heatsink. Unfortunately this design didn't work for me, as the distance between the effector and nozzle was too great (delta, effector tilt, etc). I redesigned it without putting this into service.

The 30x10mm Sunon fans are excellent: small, light, and push a lot of air.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/02/2017 11:15AM by nebbian.

Very nice! I opted for the 40x10mm fans as I just couldn't find smaller at a decent price... I'm not totally happy with the fans, but they deliver enough air I think. The blades stick out of the case by about 0.5mm or so, and instead of trapping air inside and forcing it out the exit, it tends to just chuck air out the blades if there is too much back pressure. I originally tried using 4mm brass pipe as a shroud instead to *some* success, but there was a lot of back pressure.

Do you think the cooling scheme in this design will work well, or do you think 2 fans on either side is really needed? (Pictures attached). Essentially, I upgraded the 30mm fan on the V6 hotend heatsink to 40mm and ducted it, just to give that some extra cooling and help prevent creep at higher temperatures, and then used the stock 30mm fan that comes with the hotend to blow fan on 2 sides of the nozzle/filament via ducts. The idea was to save a couple bucks (please don't argue this point of it, as it isn't the point of the question) and not have to buy 2 blower fans. Also, while it is a bit bulkier, due to the design of my printer, it actually does not take away from my print area.


Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/13/2017 11:56AM by shortyski13.

If it works for you then it works. I think the origin of this thread was thinking up compact solutions for deltas, where you want everything to fit under the effector, or it limits your build volume.

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Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

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shortyski13
Do you think the cooling scheme in this design will work well, or do you think 2 fans on either side is really needed? (Pictures attached). Essentially, I upgraded the 30mm fan on the V6 hotend heatsink to 40mm and ducted it, just to give that some extra cooling and help prevent creep at higher temperatures, and then used the stock 30mm fan that comes with the hotend to blow fan on 2 sides of the nozzle/filament via ducts. The idea was to save a couple bucks (please don't argue this point of it, as it isn't the point of the question) and not have to buy 2 blower fans. Also, while it is a bit bulkier, due to the design of my printer, it actually does not take away from my print area.
[attachment 94115 Hotend_Cooling.PNG][attachment 94116 Hotend_Cooling2.PNG]

I would print the attachment to the heatsink aswell and make it into the design, rather than convert the E3D heatsink clip. They do get looser over time and you may find the extra bulk makes it quite loose. I have to ask though, do you need a 40mm fan on the heatsink? I can't say I've ever felt the need for it... Also, the part cooling duct is pushing air onto the nozzle rather then the print. The duct opening needs to angle down more.

I've given up on fans for now.... I never found a decent solution other then a 50mm blower fan. Anything smaller seems awfully designed, or ridiculously expensive. The 40x10mm fans I hooked up are good, but they still add considerable bulk to the hotend that I'm not happy with. The design of the fan is such though that they have a lot of backflow and I wonder if they even push as much air as advertised. I may give one of these air pumps a try still.......

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Origamib

I've given up on fans for now.... I never found a decent solution other then a 50mm blower fan. Anything smaller seems awfully designed, or ridiculously expensive. The 40x10mm fans I hooked up are good, but they still add considerable bulk to the hotend that I'm not happy with. The design of the fan is such though that they have a lot of backflow and I wonder if they even push as much air as advertised. I may give one of these air pumps a try still.......

Have you investigated these ones?
B0503AFB2-8



I'm really happy with them on my builds.

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shortyski13
Do you think the cooling scheme in this design will work well, or do you think 2 fans on either side is really needed? (Pictures attached). Essentially, I upgraded the 30mm fan on the V6 hotend heatsink to 40mm and ducted it, just to give that some extra cooling and help prevent creep at higher temperatures, and then used the stock 30mm fan that comes with the hotend to blow fan on 2 sides of the nozzle/filament via ducts. The idea was to save a couple bucks (please don't argue this point of it, as it isn't the point of the question) and not have to buy 2 blower fans. Also, while it is a bit bulkier, due to the design of my printer, it actually does not take away from my print area.
[attachment 94115 Hotend_Cooling.PNG][attachment 94116 Hotend_Cooling2.PNG]

Narrow air exits create high pressure, yet most radial fans are not designed to blow at high pressure (specced at mm or in H2O) and are very inefficient. A better design would incorporate centrifugal fan.

Like this one: [www.thingiverse.com]


Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 05/15/2017 08:40AM by newbob.

Looks interesting, I've heard you just run them at 12v, have you had any problems with that so far? They are on the more expensive side as far as fans go and will have to be ordered from china... Might order a few and give it a go. Do you have any pictures of overhangs / bridges you've managed to print? Would be particularly interested in seeing some severe PLA overhangs (eg, the treefrog on thingiverse is a difficult cooling challenge).

I've been looking into the CFM of fans / pumps and it seems that a decent fish tank air pump will deliver about 0.3 to 0.4 cfm, where as these small fans deliver around 1 cfm. I'm starting to think there is more to air pumps then people are giving credit for... If it is delivered accurately it should not matter about having less cfm.... especially since most fans are inefficient at delivering air, where as the air pump should in theory deliver all the air. I've got some 4mm OD brass pipe that should work really well. It's easy to use and bends easily by hand... Will have to do some more experiments I think!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/15/2017 08:40AM by Origamib.

They run fine on 12V, no issues there at all. I've been running them for over a year, never had a failure with them. I really think they're great

DJDemonD has recently got some, perhaps he could chime in?

In case anyone is struggling to source fans.... I'm now coming across quite a few different models of small blower fan (once you start digging!). Some are very similar but have slight differences. Some are quite expensive, but have higher power and output.

I'll post all my finds in here, and edit this post as I find them.

B0503AFB2-8 -- 30x10mm fan, 5v --- The cheapest and available in bulk at around £4-5 a unit (incl. P&P)
GB0503PFV1-8 -- 30x10mm fan, 5v
B0503PFB1-8 -- 30x10mm fan, 5v --- These 3 are often found 'second hand' taken from new salvaged equipment. BA03010B05U is considerably more powerful.
BA03010B05U -- 30x10mm fan, 5v

RFB2008 -- Frickin' tiny. Available from lulzbot, and not really anywhere else. 5.5v and measures 25x20x8.5mm. Delivers a respectable 0.6 cfm (for its size). Micro blower
RFB2008N -- No idea where these are sold, apparently found in mini projectors? comes in 5v and 3.3v varieties

UDQFNKH01 -- 35x10mm fan, 5v -- Metal design and apparently 80'000 hours life (5015 blowers are usually rated around 40'000 hours). used in notebooks. Usually priced between £5-15. not a bad choice??

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/15/2017 12:21PM by Origamib.

Well I have a surplus of those 30mm sunon blower fans if you want some they're £3 each. I've got maybe 5 I dont need, I had to buy 10 from China.

They seem to work for me. I tried a fishtank pump and made a copper tube, it was noisy and didn't deliver anything like the air flow I was expecting. That being said maybe my version just wasn't very well done, maybe genuine BerdAir is better.

---

Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

I also have this issue and I am trying to find a suitable compact solution for cooling. My current design uses rails and they tend to collide with the part cooling fan with the existing designs where the fan is tilted upwards. It seems I require a blower fan solution which can have a direct downwards output. I ordered a couple from Aliexpress but the seller cancelled them and told me they were too old to be sent, so not brand new. They were the only 30 mm ones working at 12 volts, the others generally work at 5 volts. Where do you source your blower fans from? What happens if you give 12 volts to a 5 volts fan? Does it start rotating 2 times faster? DjDemonD, I might go for your Sunons if you are happy with them (I also want to try your piezo solution, so maybe both of them can be handled in the same shipping?

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drmaestro
What happens if you give 12 volts to a 5 volts fan? Does it start rotating 2 times faster?

I'm not sure about any of the other ones, but the sunons seem quite happy at 12V, they push out quite a bit of air for their size. You can throttle them down to less than 10% duty cycle and they just tick over slowly. Never had one fail on me, whereas I've had many of the normal sleeved bearing axial 30mm fans give up after a month or two.

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drmaestro
I also have this issue and I am trying to find a suitable compact solution for cooling. My current design uses rails and they tend to collide with the part cooling fan with the existing designs where the fan is tilted upwards. It seems I require a blower fan solution which can have a direct downwards output. I ordered a couple from Aliexpress but the seller cancelled them and told me they were too old to be sent, so not brand new. They were the only 30 mm ones working at 12 volts, the others generally work at 5 volts. Where do you source your blower fans from? What happens if you give 12 volts to a 5 volts fan? Does it start rotating 2 times faster? DjDemonD, I might go for your Sunons if you are happy with them (I also want to try your piezo solution, so maybe both of them can be handled in the same shipping?

I think I've only got one spare now. But dhgate had them in packs of 10. You can order a piezo sensor module from the website it's in my sig. If you want the fan with it PM me.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/17/2017 09:31AM by DjDemonD.

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Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

If anyone wants the STL for the cooling shroud I posted earlier, it's in the attached files.

Anyone looked into the Delta BFB line? Digikey sells them individually. they're 12v and come in different sizes, even a 30x30x10 that puts out 1.66 cfm.

http://www.delta-fan.com/ProductSeries.aspx?seriesname=BFB

Please, can you share those stl for 40mm blower? thanks in advance!!!

So you use fans with ABS then?

I use fans with ABS but on the minimum speed they will turn unless bridging or printing an overhang.

---

Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

For those who wanted my fan shroud designs, here they are. I apologize for how long its taken me to do this... Utter laziness on my part.

Fan shroud designs

This has mounts for 40 and 30mm fans, as well as one for a 4mm pipe duct if you use pressurised air. I've only really tested the 40mm, but I will soon have the 30mm up and running and will update as I know more. If you do happen to test these, let me know! i'd love to collaborate on new designs, or even just to see this out in the wild.




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/04/2017 09:20AM by Origamib.

thanks Origamib, I will try 40mm version!

Was asked about this earlier. One of the Flex3Drive standard offerings for print cooling. Variants revolve around same design and include DC42 IR mount - BLTouch, PINDA and other.

uses 3 x 25mm fans, and small print cooling ducts. Compact, lightweight, quiet, powerful, simple.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/04/2017 04:52PM by Mutley3D.

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Flex3Drive.com

A nice little feature of these 5v 30mm blower fans is that they have a metal body and a plastic cover. The plastic cover un-clips easily meaning you can actually print your own cover. It's a little thing, but it means the duct integrates into the fan quite well. It also means that you can modify the inlet diameter and see what affect that has on backflow. As far as I am aware, Air is sucked in at the center of the fan and then flung outwards and finally it exits the fan. I believe this is why the 40mm fan is a bad design as the blades stick out of the case, meaning air can just be spun outside never actually entering the case. The more back pressure there is, the more the air will 'sit' outside the case, rather then entering it. This is similar to normal radial fans as they have no means to 'trap' the air in the case.

If my theory is correct, a narrower inlet may lower maximum air intake into the fan, but will reduce back pressure and allow more air to be kept inside where it will be forced out the outlet. It is an interesting idea, and one that will have to wait till I get a working model! Does anyone have any idea how I can measure cfm?

Anyway... progress! The body sits on an E3D V6. its a tight fit so may need a slight sanding, or tweek your extrusion. It should be a tight fit to stop rotation. It takes a standard 30mm fan to cool the cold end, which is secured with 2x plastic screws and the 2x 30mm blowers are secured by 4x M2 screws and 4x M2 heatpress brass inserts. If its wanted, I will release a version that doesn't need brass inserts but you will still need M2 screws for the fans (unless you drill them out). The ducts are printable without support if you have good bridging. It also takes an optional DC42 IR sensor.



I think this will be the winning design! I'm quite happy with it so far. Next up I need to test if a wide or narrow outlet is best on the duct.

Edit :




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/08/2017 01:55PM by Origamib.