Cooling fan on Prusa Mendel I2

Hello all,
Ive lurked here for a while but this is my first post. About a year and a half ago I purchased a Prusa Mendel I2 kit, it came with everything but a fan. I recently tried to add a fan to it, and can not seem to get it to work. My carriage has a spot to afix the fan to, I soldered the fan to some long wires and hooked them into the D9 connection on the arduino board. I turned the fan on in Slic3r but when the printer starts to run the fan never cuts on. Am I missing a step? Is there somewhere in the Arduino firmware to turn the fan on as well? Any help is greatly appreciated!

Have a look in your Slic3r settings ("filament settings", "cooling") - there's a tab to enable and disable cooling. Also, Slic3r normally chooses when to switch it on (I think)

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Waitaki 3D Printer

Ive got an prusa i2 ive recently built with a running fan.

In marlin where you select how many extruders and whether you have a heated bed or not.
Theres a code, i think 33, for extruder, bed and fan.
Sorry havnt got a copy of the firmware to hand to post up the section.
Then you can connect it to the ramps board via the screw terminals.
Worked out of the box for me with cura and i could adjust it with the full graphics controller.

Have you got that set in the firmware and loaded it on to the arduino?

Gordon

Thanks for the suggestions so far! I should have put in my original post that I am using Sprinter, Slic3r and Pronterface for my software.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/23/2014 03:30PM by zenman76.

So I still have not been able to get the fan on while printing, but after doing a bit more reading I came across the M106/M107 command. I started a print up, manually turned the fan on, and it came on. For some reason it cuts off after an amount of time, which I have yet determined. It has certainly made my prints look much better, until the fan cuts out, then it starts going bad. Is there a command to keep it running for the duration of the print?

In Slic3r, in the cooling settings section, there should be a checkbox to keep the fan on constantly, instead of only using it for bridges and small layers.

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MakerFarm 8" Prusa i3v
RAMPS 1.4
0.4mm E3D v6 for 1.75mm

Out of curiosity what is the best software to run with this printer to get optimal prints?

I don't know about the i2. I run an i3v with slic3r as my usual slicer, cura for those prints that slic3r can't handle, Marlin firmware, and Pronterface (printrun) when I need to control the printer directly from the computer. I also use Netfabb Basic to fix those .stl files that have errors, and to reorient objects within the .stl.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/07/2014 04:26PM by AbuMaia.

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MakerFarm 8" Prusa i3v
RAMPS 1.4
0.4mm E3D v6 for 1.75mm