multiple fans

this is just a thought, seeing how one my mendel i am getting up and running again, i have to use 2-3 fans on it. one on the hot end, and one on the ramps board, and soon i hope one for the print.

though seeing how i am not a big fan of all the noise those fans make, i like to slow them down. so i was wondering what other people have done.

i love and hate those 40mm fans, they are great for tight spots but they are louder than my computer. witch i just replaced a loud 120mm fan in.

so anyone ever think about building a controller for them.?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/01/2013 07:42PM by dissidence.

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[mike-mack.blogspot.com]

2 options.

1. make something like this [www.thingiverse.com] and slow them with your controller.

2. supply them with a different voltage. If your using an atx supply connecting the + from the fan to 12v and - to 5 gives you 7 volts. Slows fans nicely but still work (most of the time). If not using an atx supply then there are many simple variable voltage circuilts available using very cheap parts.

I have been thinking of maybe creating a fan-cover that distributes air to two different areas, most of the air goes to cooling the top of the hotend and the extruder, and a small portion is distributed around the tip of the hotend, blowing downward to cool down the printed material.

My only problem is that I don't understand openSCAD, and in Sketchup it's all very limited.

I have paralleled up 4 fans on the printer I just finished and connected them to the fan output on the control board. Two fans are on the hot end and the other two are on the X and Y axis motors to keep them cool. This printer has a Printrboard but my other printers are using Azteeg X3 boards and all of them drive the multiple fans OK. The fan output is intended for use with the hot end fans so can be controlled with Marlin/Slicer/Pronterface so you could code the speed you want into the g-code by setting the maximum speed. The fans do go on and off as set in Slicer but that works OK, I find the fans run for most of the print and the motors take a while to heat up anyway.

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Richmond, New Zealand
Thingiverse ~ YouTube

Another option ive used in the past is a 4 way computer style fan controller to run the fans I want manual control of. They make new touch screen controllers for fans that can be had for around $25. You can also set tge fans on auto so they turn on at a pre deturmined temp.

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