A month or two ago I replaced the super-loud fan that came with my E3D Lite6 with an almost completely silent Scythe “Mini KAZE” 40mm fan. The Scythe has a significantly lower CFM and I’m not using the fan mount/duct that came with the E3D - I just put it about 8mm away from the heatsink.
So on paper, it’s a much worse cooling solution, but it prints great (using PLA up to about 220C) and the bottom of the heatsink (which should be the hottest) feels like it’s just a tiny bit above room temperature.
Is there any downside to having relatively little airflow over the heatsink?
@Panayiotis_Savva Right, but it’s nowhere near getting too hot. What I’m getting at is that a lot of these loud, high CFM fans don’t seem to be necessary unless you’re printing material at temps greater than the Lite6 can support.
@Fred_Hamilton I wouldn’t worry about it. The extra distance ensures a free airflow, and therefore probably even better cooling. As long as you don’t want to print ABS, that is. In that case the airflow over the printed part could cause problems.
That said, I think they’ve said somewhere there’s cases where the fan isn’t necessary on the lite6. I personally wouldn’t take chances. There are 40mm fan ducts for e3d that you can download and print.
The “cold side” of an hotend can NEVER be to cold in room temperature. The cooler the better, but alot of fanspeed and airflow creates noice. 40mm fan is always better than the 30mm e3d fan. Try to measuure the “coldside” fins and compare the temp with the 30mm fan. e3d is designed to work with that temp. If you are close to room temp you are fine.
To increase the temperature transportation from the heatbreaker put Artic Silver (=high quality CPU cooler paste) on the M7 treads. This helps the heatbreaker to be cooler and prevent clogging of filament inside the coldside of the extruder.
On the Lite6 you have reduced the problem on the “cold side”. The Lite6 is a much simplier type of extruder. The design works well for PLA and is easy maintained.
The filament can stuck in the teflontube if the teflon tube is to warm. Alot of air on the heatsink reduces that problem. The rule of thumb is not changed. “The coldside can never be too cold”
The teflon tube design reduces the temperature that can be used to 230-235C