Great work!
Awesome. Love seeing stuff like this.
Got 3 fans in hand now. Seems all the screw holes are identical as I had hoped. One is 15mm thick. Clearly out of the running. I failed to note it was that thick when i ordered it so that one was my fault. Now to compare them up and see who is noisy and who is not. I may end up with a resistor inline to cut voltage and thus RPM. I really don’t think I need all the CFM these can put out. Stay tuned. Getting near the end now.
I eliminated the 30x30x15. Too big. I liked the 30x30x10 for quiet but it doesn’t have recessed screw holes and I fear the screws would exceed the space limit. So I am going with a 30x30x7. It has recessed screw holes but they don’t fit hex cap screws. I will have to run to the hardware store and grab some pan heads tomorrow. The chosen fan is a ball bearing fan and its free running noise level is less than the cage fan the Taz currently has. Using the resistors (noted below) that noise level is cut even more. At that point, I doubt you will hear it over the electronics fan or the running steppers squalking away during a print. But at idle, the taz will be very quiet now 
Here is the rejected fan 30x30x10:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/271546969098
The following hardware list assumes you would be converting an existing single hex extruder head from Lulz and would be using the extruder assembly, existing 40mm fan and all existing wiring and connectors.
Here is my chosen fan (Evercool 30x30x7 ball bearing 5v):
http://www.evercoolusa.com/?p=678
And the ebay link:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/121149126099
Other hardware:
8x m3x3.8mm Heat Sets
2x m3x10mm Hex screws (attach shroud to extuder mount)
2x m3 washers
4x m3x10mm Pan Head screws (can use hex but pan gives more lateral clearance to the z limit switch/wiring)
1x 2 Pin connector
2x Pins for the above connector
Heat shrink tubing.
2x 33ohm 1/8w or 1x 15ohm 1/4w resistor (optional if you want to cut down the rpms and sound level)
Optional:
These are for the wiretie to hold it to the aluminum plate, seen below with a bread twistie temporarily.
1x m3x8mm Hex screw
1x m3 washer
Printed Parts:
Fan Shroud (shown in orange below)
Extruder Mount plate (shown in green below)
I played with some resistors in series and I like 15 to 16ohms. It cuts the rpms down and the noise but still leaves way more airflow than the dinky little fan the Taz had. I have two 33ohm in parallel to get 16ohms. They are 1/8w so that gives me 1/4w dissipation across the two. Ran it off a PC supply for 2 hours tonight and the resistors never changed temp that I could tell with my fingers.
No changes are made to the Taz itself and this mod is 100% reversible. You will make no changes to any Taz5 part that is not reversible. If you wish to return to the stock setup, simply transfer all your parts back to the stock mounting plate and print on!
I have not soldered anything yet. Got busy with a laser project tonight too.
Here is the assembled prototype. All thats left is to put some heat shrink tubing on to make it look nice, solder on the two resistors, put the 2 pin plug on the fan and the 4 pin on the stepper, its one of the 1/2 height steppers from Lulz’ shop. My intention is for this extruder to eventually be part of a dualie or flexi-dualie.
I am printing a second extruder mount plate and another fan shroud to convert my other print head. Once those are done, I will dry fit this head and verify clearances work as I think they should. I will then disassemble my existing head and convert it. As I said, this one is destined to be a dualie and I don’t want to heat up the hex just yet.
After a reasonable break in on the other head and if all goes well, I will upload STLs to Thingiverse for everyone to have. I will include a shroud for 30mm fans as well as one for 40mm fans if you choose to go a larger diameter, as well as the modified mounting plate to accept the shroud.
Here are a couple 40mm fan candidates, I have NOT tested these at all:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/221655455848
http://www.ebay.com/itm/370641477512
Look for 40mm x 40mm x 7mm 5v fans.
I feel like a broken record… but that really does look pretty awesome. I think the added cooling would help folks having problems printing PLA.
Keep us updated and let us know when the files are available on Thingiverse.
Thank you. Having one’s work appreciated really makes me feel like it was worth it.
Here is the fan with the new screws and its wiring harness finished:
As you can see, with the 7mm fan and the pan head screws, there is plenty of room. This is fully homed on X:
Here are two vids.
Here is the Taz homing with the new fan in place:
http://youtu.be/01mz3FG8cFg
And here is a sound comparison between my tiny squirrel cage blower stock Taz5 fan and the new 30mm I built:
http://youtu.be/kcP5SsKEs3w
I know, really action packed video eh? Sorry, needed both hands to work the wire connector so I had no choice but to lay the camera down for this one.
Now that I have confirmed clearances, I can rebuild the main head and get to printing with it. Tried to print a mount frame but stupid computer locked up with only 10min left in the print 
Sigh. More scrap.
Ok, running the new head now. Doing some test prints to see how it holds up.
In the mean time thought I would post some picts of the plate as most have been the shroud.
The heat-sets:
All you need from your existing head:
And here she is all assembled:
Here it is beginning to print a herring bone gear:
http://youtu.be/9k8HNd6Luqg
Wolfie
I just purchased a used TAZ 4. I am interested in getting a Hexagon hot end setup, but Lulzbot has none available for sale. Would you or anyone out there be interested in making me one for the same price I could buy it from Lulzbot($175.00) This would have to include the stepper motor and all wiring, including the new wiring for the new fan connection going back to the Rambo card. I really like your setup for the heat sink fan. If you were building one from scratch would you consider using the E3D V6 hot end? Not user if the thermistor is different for the hexagon hot end and the E3D hot end, also are the heaters the same. If you use the E3D would you have to change firmware?
I don’t have access to the lulz’ hex hot ends any more than you do. I am just a Taz owner like you but I started with a Taz 5. I have since purchased an extra extruder (with hex), a couple half height steppers and a flexi-dualie. I had to clean the nozzle on my dualie and I can’t get the nozzle back on, threads were stripp3ed when I removed the nozzle. So thats a piece of trash at this point and I am not very happy about it.
Lulz isn’t stocking the Hex in their store for some reason, I am guessing its production is dedicated to supplying new Taz5 sales. I can’t get them either for developing a dual extruder with all metal hot ends. For that reason, I will likely be going with the E3D V6 for the dualie designs I am working on.
And if you are starting with a Taz 4 with a budda hot end, yes, you will need to update your firmware if you change to an all metal hot end like the Hex or E3D. The budda uses a different thermistor and heater than the E3D and Hex. I don’t think and E3D/Hex will heat properly with the firmware from the budda (lower power settings for the heater) though I have not tried it first hand. By contrast, you will toast a budda’s heater if you plug it into a taz with a firmware set up for a hex. The E3D and Hex can and do use 3x the power that the budda does.
That said, changing the firmware isn’t that hard. You just need to edit a few settings in one file and then upload it to your Taz. Its only a few minutes of tinkering. I have firmware saved for the Hex and a 2nd copy for the Budda. That way all I need to do is load up the proper one and upload it to the Taz when I change heads.
Buy the LB Mini toolhead… same price and jn stock. Disassemble and use hexagon. May need to print out the TAZ5 extruder and transfer all hardware… Or if you want to keep multiple toolheads, get a wades hardware kit from someplace like Utilibots.
E3D-V6 seems like a good choice if building from scratch… That’s the direction I’m leaning. But I’m also thinking about a compact direct drive rather than the wades.
@Wolfie – Did you find a CAD file for the Mounting Plate or did you just remesh the STL? I ask as I have been looking for the original CAD file and it does not seem to exist anywhere.
Thanks!
Steven
I found one in an obscure folder on the devel server:
http://devel.lulzbot.com/TAZ/accessories/javelin/test_parts/
hex_nozzle_with.STL is with a mount plate, hex_nozzle_without.STL is without the plate. I simply extracted the connected polygons for the plate so I have a mesh of the plate now as well as the Lulz version of the Hexagon.
I used FileZilla to do a recursive search on the Lulz ftp site looking for “hex”. It came up with a hell of a lot of hits, mostly .hex files (boot loader images).
Ok, here is the new fan shroud and mount plate:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:766633
Enjoy. Let me know if you build one and what your results are.
Awesome work!
Would it be possible to have a dual duct version- to cool both the hot end and the printed part? Would restricting the lower printed part duct help to keep most of the cool air going to the hot end cooling fins?
I thought about modifying the existing shroud design from Lulz. But I dismissed that very quickly as an option. That causes a big issue. I print a lot with ABS. Normally I print with no cooling fan. If the cooling and heat sink fan are one in the same, whats cooling the heat sink if the cooling fan is off? Nothing.
So thats why I immediately dismissed the combo duct idea.
As for restricting the lower part, yes it would. Air is like water, it will seek out the path of least resistance and if you increase the resistance of one outlet it will naturally flow to the other. Its why they put dampers inside heat/cooling ducts that are shorter than the other runs. If your furnace was just below your bathroom then your bathroom vent would get most of the air and your upstairs bedroom would get none. So they put a damper inline with the bathroom duct to restrict its flow and thus balance out the airflow to it and to upstairs.
That’s a great point!
would it work to have some sort of knife gate on the lower section of the dual cooling fan design? I dont know the proper word for it, but something that could slide in and out so when you switch from PLA to ABS you could slide the gate and get cooling for just the fins and when you go back to PLA just push it into the position that would allow you to have the optimal air flow to the part. the gate could be anyting, a piece of plastic or paper or even a single sheet of printed material.
That is certainly one solution. However, you must remember that many folks don’t run the PWM fan at 100% for an entire build. Most of the time I have the fan off for ABS, especially during the first few layers. Then if I have bridges, I will squeek it up to 20-30%. Now, how would I do that with a gate? Would I start the build with the gate down and the fan at 100% all the time then pause the print and manually move the gate as some point so I could get some fan on the extrusion?
Thats why I chose to go the dedicated heat sink fan route. No fiddling. No forgetting. Its on. its on always. The PWM fan continues to operate just like it did before, under software (gcode) control and will never adversely affect cooling of the head.
of course, I did not think of that. I am still learning all about this amazing science! 
Me too. This is been quite a journey. And this was only one stepping stone for me. This was a first try at something like this so I could gain experience before tackling the next…an E3D flexi-dualie. Got the hot ends on order, one back ordered. Next step is going after a standard wades with it. Then modifying that to handle flex. Then go double-barrel.