Print Cooler for Prusa i3V ?

I have a Prusa 10" i3V, with a clough42 Z Probe for auto leveling, and clough42 extruder cooling shroud.

I am looking for a good solution for a print cooler.
Below is a photo of my current setup. It is what has worked best for me so far, has made a big improvement on my PLA prints.
BUT,,,, its also cooling the extruder tip too much, and I can not run the print cooler fan when I print with ABS.
I will set the nozzle to 242 degrees and if the fan is on, it can not maintain that at all, it will be more like 215 degrees

What is everyone else running? Any tips or suggestions would be great, thanks.

The print cooling fan isn't an all or nothing deal, you set as much as you need to get the job done. 50mm blower fans produce a lot of air, with a fairly open duct like you have, positioned as close as that, you will probably only need to run between 15 and 30% of max rpm.

Conventional wisdom is not to use a part cooling fan with abs as it encourages delamination. However, I think there is some merit to running a hotter extruder and using gentle part cooling to prevent small areas from over-heating. It's a difficult balancing act, especially without a heated enclosure.

You probably want to rotate the fan back a little so that the duct points to just below the nozzle rather than straight at it. It's hard to tell from your photo - is the heatblock insulated or not? A small amount of heat resistant material around the heatblock makes a big difference to the ability of the heater to maintain temperature in the presence of drafts.

Edit: missed the most important part: welcome to the forum

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/08/2017 09:25PM by JamesK.

Thanks for the reply.
This setup has the most air of any of the other ones I have ran, and it has greatly improved my PLA prints.
But between it making the nozzle temp drop, and even makig some ABS prints lift from the heated bed, I need a better solution.
Been turning it off for ABS prints, which arent horrible, but not as clean as PLA.

No, I do not have any heat isolation material on my nozzle, thats a good idea.
Anything in particular thats recommended? Some sort of tape would be nice,
I just have a tiny bit of the gold tape on there now that came with the printer. Its heat resistant, but not sure it actually insulates.

I use ceramic fiber insulation which you can buy quite cheaply in sheets, e.g.

[www.ebay.ca]

I cut out a box shape and then hold it in place with kapton tape. It is a bit fiddly, I admit! An easier alternative is to buy smaller strips and not worry about the sides, e.g.

[www.ebay.ca]

Kapton tape on it's own is probably better than nothing, but you need something with a bit more bulk to really improve things. The down side is that if (when) you get a nozzle leak it makes a complete mess inside the insulation and is a real pain to clean up.

I've recently been working on a forked nozzle to try and get more even coverage, but I think it would be way too long for your setup.

Thanks for the links!
I ordered one of the sheets, that should help a good bit I bet.

I have printed 4 different ring air ducts so far, seeing if I can get any to fit, but my Z homing servo gets in the way,
Hoping I can find one that I can cut a side off of and have it clear. I think the ring or U shaped ones would work best,
get more even cooling, and maybe not blow on the nozzle as much.

Yes, that's the hope. Turns out to be very difficult to get a ring shape that fits in the space available and actually provides even cooling, which is why I gave up and went to the fork shape. I hear good things about the cobra design:

[www.thingiverse.com]

I haven't tried it - my setup is very nonstandard so I'm pretty much forced to do my own thing.

There's an interesting thread exploring some different approaches to cooling:

[forums.reprap.org]

Thats an interesting design, not seen one like that before.
I would have to somehow mount it to be on the right side though, that would be in the way of my Z servo the way they have it mounted on the back or front.
I need more of a C shape I guess. That mounts on the front, and goes around the right side of the nozzle and around to the back.