Evolution of a Blog

This blog has evolved as I have as a maker. It starts at the beginning of my journey where I began to re-tread my tires in the useful lore of micro electronics and the open-source software that can drive them. While building solutions around micro-electronics are still an occasional topic my more recent focus has been on the 3D Printing side of making.

Sunday, March 22, 2015

Super Cool Active Fan Mount and Duct

It has become clear that to achieve the speeds and level of detail that I desire a fan is required.  I experimented with a duct that uses the extruder fans in a reversed mode and had issues that I now feel were a result of cheap fans.  I think with better fans that duct would satisfy a lot of people requirements.

But I want to be able to do active cooling controlled for each print if desired.  I found this fan mount and duct on Thingiverse and was intrigued.   Unfortunately I was not able to get it printed before I gave up on the ducts that I mentioned above so I resorted to using Nicks Hub on 3D Hubs.  I had it in two days though it did cost me a few quid. 

Here is Nick's version mounted on my printer and the one that I was then able to print.

That duct is a work of art both in how it works and how it looks.  It even printed nicely once I had a copy of it mounted.


Posted by at

6 comments:

  1. UnknownFebruary 3, 2016 at 6:52 PM

    Hi, thanks for sharing. Where/how exactly do you power it? Did you need to solder onto the motherboard?

    ReplyDelete
  2. WisarFebruary 8, 2016 at 11:34 AM

    The current mother boards for the Wanhao Duplicator 4S are setup so that you can power this fan from the aux connection and control it via firmware. The old mother board did not have a connector, or the electronics to do so. If you have an old mother board you can setup a connection from the power supply to the fan via a switch or you can try to upgrade the mother board. I took the former approach. Just have to remember to turn the fan on after the first couple of layers!

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownJune 2, 2016 at 8:44 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  4. UnknownJune 2, 2016 at 8:44 AM

    Hi, do the Printer have MK9 or MK10 extruders? I think they look like MK10, but the Duct is only compatible with MK7/MK8/MK9, isn't it?

    ReplyDelete
  5. WisarJune 2, 2016 at 9:12 AM

    It worked fine, better than fine, great even, on my printer with MK10 extruders. I don't think the geometry of things is different enough, where it matters, for the duct not to work. I did get it printed in resin though as ABS did warp after a while and the part is a challenge to print nicely. Did I mention how well it works? I have since sold the printer but have fond memories of that duct!

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)