Re: Quieter Fans
Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 12:08 am
Super thanks
Hey zemlin,zemlin wrote: ↑Fri Feb 26, 2016 2:50 pmMy fan mods - I've had my M2 for just under a month. My approach to quieting the fans was to replace them with larger fans that run slower. Both the bed fan and the electronics fans were replaced with 80mmx15mm thick 24V fans. I just bought cheapo fans on eBay.
I made a duct/mount for the bed fan to bring the air flow down to 40mm wide. I put a honeycomb flow straightener which made a big difference in keeping the flow directed at the nozzle area rather than blowing off to the side. I have also learned over the years that having a fan grill too close to the fan blades is a source of noise, so my grills are offset from the fan blades by 1.5mm-2mm, depending on the fan size. I did not slow this fan, since it is adjustable already in the software. I did, however, put a .47 uf capacitor in series with the fan to quiet PWM ring. The duct is mostly a .75mm thin wall to keep the weight down. Initially I made a shallower duct that kept the fan much closer to the rail, but the steep angles in the transition caused airflow problems.
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For the electronics enclosure, I took a rather round-about approach, but since my machine is still under warranty I did not want to cut metal just yet. I printed a plenum that hangs off the side of the enclosure. Mounting the fan right under the Y-table on the printer would have really restricted the area available for air flow, so I moved it out to the front of the machine where I could put more space under the fan. Once warranty runs out I will probably relocate this fan into the enclosure - if there is room. To slow this fan it has a 120 ohm 5W resistor in series with it. Moves a lot more air than the little squirt that was in the box, but is almost silent. The resistor is mounted inside the plenum so it doesn't add any heat to the electronics enclosure and gets good airflow to keep it cool. 5W is much larger than it needs to be - but the resistors were cheap.
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I also put a 12V 80mm fan on the power supply - this is just stuck on top of the internal enclosure with a simple adapter I printed out - I used two of the 120 ohm resistors in parallel to slow this fan. I will relocate this one for sure once I can cut metal on this machine.