30/40mm Heat Sink Fan for Taz + Hexagon

I thought some folks might not stumble into the other thread that wasn’t titled well for this project. So I collected the relevant posts into this one initial post so the thread has a collective home that is properly titled.

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.

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.


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.

Here are 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

Looks good! I’m having so much trouble printing PLA due to heat creep that I I’ll try this!

Never thought about the PLA aspects, I print so little of it. Please report back and let us know if there is any change in PLA issues. Good or bad.

You have re-licensed our free/libre/open code under a non-free license. This is not permitted under the terms of the license:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:766633

You write:
"The extruder mount is adapted from the stock Lulzbot extruder mount plate STL that was supplied with my Taz 5. "

Please use the GPLv3 or remove the object.

Thanks,

-Jeff

Oops. Had the wrong license selected. I don’t see a v3 specific setting just GPL. Is it correct now?

Per COPYING at devel.lulzbot.com:

Unless otherwise noted, all files in this archive are licensed under the GPLv3
and/or CC BY SA 4.0.

So I suspect GPL or Attribution Share Alike would be correct.

thanks for posting this and thanks for your work. It’s appreciated. This looks awesome. Nice to know there are other options now aside from those super expensive little blower fans… is the plate modified from the original back plate though?

I guess it depends on what you are calling the “back plate”.

Nothing on the taz itself is modified. All changes were done to the removable head. The only stock part of that assembly that is modified is the mounting plate (shown in green in the images). The new part is the fan duct (shown in orange). The actual extruder (all of it) is stock, no changes. The carriage (the parts that slide on the rails) is stock, no changes.

I had to modify the extruder mounting plate’s left side to allow me to tuck the fan in tighter and allow clearance between the fan and the Z-axis sensor switch mounted in the Taz frame and to provide mounting screw sockets.

To complete this project, you will need to print two parts. The extruder mount plate (large green part in photos), and the fan ducts (orange fan duct in the photos).

This is the stock part that I modified:
http://download.lulzbot.com/TAZ/5.0/production_parts/printed_parts/extruder_mount_hex/

Before:

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After.png621×621 7.39 KB

ok, thanks, that’s what I was wondering…

Just printed the parts, waiting the fan arrive and hoping that I will finally get some PLA parts printed !

Vitor Henrique

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Awesome! Curious how it works with the PLA. If you need extra CFM, you can shunt across the resistors. I simply put them there to cut the RPMs down on the fan which reduces noise but it also reduces CFM. If you want max cooling potential, either short across them with a switch or not put them inline at all.

I’m definitely letting everybody know how it works on PLA, but my FAN simply does not arriveeee! =/

I have an enclosure, and most of the noise is being canceled already, so i’m planing to use without any resistors, I just need to test how much current does the fan need, I don’t know “where” does the 5V power supply for the micro blower comes from on rambo and I need to double check if it is capable of sourcing enough current without burning some components.

From following wiring, its the Vcc +5 on the rambo board. I looked at the install pages (OHI) on how to install the Hex hot end head on a Taz 4. They add the +5v line to the plug coming off the Vcc pin on one of the headers on the rambo. Given that, I don’t think you can buy a 30mm or even 40mm fan that would draw more power than the Vcc line can handle.

Some of the fans I linked to off ebay are marketed for the Raspberry Pi. And its powerd through a USB port

Very good mod.

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pla test 2.JPG2448×3264 1.83 MB

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Bummer. As I said, I don;t print a lot of PLA but, with one exception, its always printed for me, even with the tiny squirrel fan. I always got way further than you did (in the image, looks ilke it stops on the 2nd layer). My only mess happened about 2" up on a tall build. All other PLA prints went fine. But no really big ones.

Because you can’t vapor smooth PLA safely, I rarely use it.

Wolfie
Nice job on the fan setup. I just finished printing the parts and I just ordered the fan you listed above. I am a little concerned about the problems you and vitormhenrique have had with printing in PLA. I will give this a try and see what happens.

I also have a few questions about the setup.

1. the fan I ordered has 3 wires and the connector for the squirrel fan is a 2 wire connector. How do I wire this, what do I do with the third wire?

2. Where did you order the parts list below from, especially the Heat Sets, do you need a special soldering iron or tips for putting in the heat sets.

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)

3. Also what do you mean by “Because you can’t vapor smooth PLA safely” what is vapor smooth PLA, this is new to me

Thanks again for this design, I hope it works for PLA and heat creep.

For virtually all the answers, follow the instructions here:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:766633/#instructions

Follow the step by step instructions here:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:766633/#instructions
"Snip the YELLOW wire off about 1/2" from the fan case, its not used for this build. "
Three wire PC fans are wired thus:
Red = + Voltage (5v/12v)
Yellow = Tachometer speed sensor back to motherboard
Black = Ground

Since the Taz does not have nor need the tach feedback from the fan, simply snip the wire. I covered the end with a short bit of heat shrink tubming so it doesn’t ground out against anything.

The instructions on the link above contain a link to purchase the heat sets, the resistor (which is optional) the connector and the pins. Mcmaster-Carr is where I got the heat set hardware. The hex screws, washers, and pan head screws I bought a the local TrueValue hardware store about a half mile down the road. They can be purchased at McMaster-Carr as well. Heat shrink tubing I got from Radio Shack a while back. Think most of the RS are now gone, business going bad for them. You can order it from DigiKey (same as the resistor) or from http://www.mouser.com/ and I think places like TrueValue and Home Depot likely carry it in the electrical isles.

Having a specific iron is nice but it is NOT absolutely required. You can purchase tips designed to fit the heat sink inserts that makes putting them in a breeze. But, if you are not going to do this very often, then no you don’t need a specific iron or tip. Any iron with a conical tip which will fit inside the 3mm thread hole will work. Basically you just need to get the brass insert hot enough to melt the surrounding plastic and then push it into the hole. I used a regular soldering iron for a while until I decided to get the tips and an iron for them. The correct iron as well as the correct tip is listed on the McMaster-Carr link I provide in the instructions. On that page, click Installation Tips (doesn’t mean tips on how to instal, it means the tips for the iron). On the page it takes you to, the tip for the M3 will be highlighted. You only need one per MM size, I bought 3,4 and 5 because I plan to use all those sizes. The iron is listed on that page as well “Soldering Iron 7662A696 Each $26.36”. Again a single purchase. Yes, it adds about $40 to your bill but its a nice convenience. As I said though, if this is a one time deal for you, don’t bother. If you have an iron you can stick the tip into the hole of a 3mm nut, then it will work good enough for the few sets you need to install for this project.

http://blog.reprap.org/2013/02/vapor-treating-abs-rp-parts.html

ABS is dissolved by common Acetone (available from the paint dept of most home depot type stores). Basically you put some acetone in a large glass container. Heat it (I use the heated bed on the Taz set to 70c) (and yes, I know you don’t technically have to heat it but its faster and produces a finish in seconds not hours). Wait until the jar fills with vapor (you will see it on glass as it fills). Then you suspend your printed part into the hot vapor for a few seconds. This slightly dissolves the surface of the part and the acetone condenses on the surface forming a thin ABS-Acetone slurry and when you pull it out, the acetone/abs forms a smooth glaze on the surface. The finished part looks like you put a heavy coating of clear paint on it. But you didn’t.

Acetone vapor is a heavy vapor. That means it doesn’t float up, it sinks down. That is why it stays in the jar and you see it as it fills the container. It also condenses at room temperature which means your part will cause it to condense as long as its cool to room temp (ie not fresh off the build plate and warm). It also means that the vapor will condense and cool on the glass sides and roll back to the bottom to be recycled. Its also only flammable in very narrow range of acetone to air ratios. You could literally drop a lit match into the jar full of vapor and it would likely just put the match out. If it did catch fire, the fire would burn very slowly at the top where the vapor and air mix at just the right ratio. No explosion. No crisis. Just put a lid on and it goes out immediately. The vapor is far to thick in the jar to support combustion and since its heavy, it rolls out the top and down the sides rapidly thus spreading out its volume quickly. That takes the concentration down to below where it will burn. That leaves a very narrow zone at the top where the air to fuel ratio is correct enough to actually burn.

By contrast, PLA is NOT dissolved by Acetone, nor any other reasonably safe to handle chemical. There are a few solvents that will dissolve PLA and could be used to vapor smooth it but they are not commonly available and require extreme caution in their handling and use (suits and respirators). I have chosen not to deal with that and stick with ABS and cheap, common, easy to handle acetone.