A little advice needed please.

3D Printing
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A little advice needed please. I am building a Richrap 3DR printer and am trying to decide how to cool the cold end of the nozzle. A 40mm fan seems the most common route but I can’t find any clear pictures showing how people are mounting them. Can anyone share an STL or photo of a fan mounted to a 3DR micro platform please?

Alternatively, I was looking at attaching a blower fan to the rear of the frame and ducting air through tubing to the cold end, has anyone tried this on a delta? I imagine the weight of the tube is greater than simply mounting a fan but thought it was worth looking at.

thanks in advance.

adavidm

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@Richard_Horne

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I would avoid ducting long distances unless you have a fan with enough pitch on the blades to hand high static back pressure. Flex duct is notoriously terrible for creating back pressure.

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that’s what I was worrying about, I suspect driving enough air this way is going to be relatively noisy too.

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I wanted a part cooling duct in addition to my E3D cooling fan. In the end I went with this solution which works very well on my 3DR.

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Thanks Richard, I’ll probably give something like that a try.

I think that, ultimately, I want to keep the part cooling fan off the platform to keep the moving mass low but I’m not sure if I’m being overly paranoid about this. I’ve got no experience with deltas so trying to get my head around the options.

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@David_Martin almost any fan 25mm, 30mm or 40mm should work. you only really need a little cooling for PLA as long as you are not printing too hot.

A duct should help, but again it’s not essential most of the time.

Good luck with the build, let us know how you get on.

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Thanks Richard. I’ve got a 40mm fan. I was really after a clear picture of the mounting to the 3DR, I can’t quite see from the photos on your blog.

The 3DR is nearly there. It should be printing this week. I’m just finishing the FSR-based bed now.

adavidm

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Did you check out the original files and photos on Thingiverse? http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:170317
The fan mount piece is fixed directly to the modified E3D fan duct piece. No direct connection to the platform.

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ah sorry Richard G, that was aimed at Richard H!

I did check out the thingiverse link you provided, and I’ll probably do something similar once I’ve got the basic printer working with the JHead have right now. It looks like people use a very simple mount with the J Head, I just can’t see a clear photo of it.

Thanks for everyone’s continued assistance, much appreciated!

adavidm