Quieter Fans

[psd]

Super thanks

[psd]

Hello Group,
urgent question:

If I am replacing Power supply fan with a Noctua,
the power supply fan has red and black leads. the noctua has black, yellow, green and blue.

I assume the two blacks are common, which color on the nocuta corresponds to the red?

also which way should the fan face outward? With sticker outward or inward?

Please help soon as my machine is dismantled and out of use until I resolve!

[zemlin]

Fan should exhaust - so judging by the photo it looks like sticker out.
Yellow lead is typically for tach, which does not apply.

Editing this because I didn't see the new fan has 4 leads. Don't know on that one.

[psd]

Thanks I just resolved, I realized I purchased the wrong fan, but I had one of the correct ones with only two leads out. All is working. Thank you

[Schmee323]

My 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.

IMG_1880.JPG

IMG_1886.JPG

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.

IMG_1882.JPG

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.

Hey zemlin,
I love this idea of putting the 80mm fan on the electronics box!!! Any chance you have the step file for this? I have done a complete noctua fan replacement but am waiting on some step down converters to bring the 24V fan supply on the electronics and extruder fans down to 12V. I have them in series at the moment, but they sometimes wont start. I assume that these fans are also pwm controlled. Otherwise they should theoretically run. Anyway, let me know, and keep up the good work!

[zemlin]

Zipped step file attached.
There are a couple square bosses that hang from the upper housing. Those are for a ceramic resistor I used to slow the fan. You can remove those if you have other plans electrically.
This attached to the grill features on the electronics box with over-sized washers to cover the gap. I might have printed stepped washers. I used #4-40 screws. There are slots to house hex nuts. #4-40 screws also screw the halves of the housing together. M3 would work in the same holes.

[Gwhite]

I realize this is an old thread, and that the forum isn't terribly active these days. However, I just completed a couple week investigation of fan noise & air flow on my M2E, and I figured this was still the best place to post the results. I've got a lengthy write-up, with a bunch of photos, and I put it all into a PDF rather than try to enter it all here and possibly deal with limitations on photo attachments. Then I discovered the forum won't allow PDF attachments, so I parked it here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tYOStI ... sp=sharing

The bottom line is that if you want good air flow and low noise, get simple wire grills off Amazon or eBay. One key is to get the kind that are open in the middle. I got one from Noctua that has the middle covered by a disk with their logo, and that lowers the air flow and increases the noise a bit.

Using this grill on my bed fan: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M5CMP0R, I dropped the noise level and boosted the air flow petty much to the levels I measured with no grill at all. The factory grill adds about 9 dB to the noise level, and cuts the air flow by over a factor of 3.

[jferguson]

Hi Doug,
I guess we're the last two users here. It seems like the quietest solution is to just leave off the grille. Something else you might try is to buy a Bambu X1 Carbon which despite having an enclosure makes some really LOUD noises while it's getting organized. with it running you'll never hear the M2.

[airscapes]

Hi Doug,
I guess we're the last two users here. It seems like the quietest solution is to just leave off the grille. Something else you might try is to buy a Bambu X1 Carbon which despite having an enclosure makes some really LOUD noises while it's getting organized. with it running you'll never hear the M2.

HAHAHAHAH that right there is funny!
I also replaced the fan in the power supply but while doing that I cut out the metal grill of the inside case which increases air flow and reduces noise.. .. Used this have had it running in my original m2 for over 2 hears and now in a second m2.. Both running at the same time.. less noise the one original https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00VX ... UTF8&psc=1

[jferguson]

I haven't tried this because I'm not uncomfortable with the sounds that my M2 makes, but adding a spacer between the fan and the grille ought to reduce the noise level. When you have time, look up how sirens are made and note how similar the design is to these pancake fans.