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I've been experimenting with different designs for the cooling fan shroud. My latest design I'm calling the Air Scorpion because it sounds cool. So far, it does work, but needs a little minor tweeking still. Let me know what you think.

Pretty slick!

that's pretty cool. What type of material filament did you use? The first thing that came to mind when I saw your pix was the flexible tubing for CNCs. So I have to ask, why not just use this for less than $10 or even cheaper for shorter length. http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/1716117157 ... =82&chn=ps You could probably just find a shroud or make up one real quick. Either way, looks cool.

Yes I was inspired by the air puffer on my scroll saw, but I thought why buy one when I can print them? This is made up of a holder for the fan, a few links that connect together and a flattened nozzle that connects to the links. I just used PLA since it doesn't actually come into contact with the hot end. I suppose ABS would be better though.

Cool design
(3) of them would be even better.

love the name.

My fan shrouds are all PLA and they never melt, even if the layer cooling fans are off for a long time. I theorize that heating is inverse square or worse once you transition from aluminum to air.

3 fans are better than 1, and you might consider opening some of the "stinger" that points away from the hot end to let more air wash back and away from the hot end. Best not to over-cool it. That leads to stringing, and encourages jamming.

Okay, this is good info. I am redesigning it, so any information is helpful.
Please explain why 3 is better than one. Are we talking 3 fans, one on each support?
What is the best spot for the air to go?
I want to design something that is versatile for multiple setups in case I ever want to raise my hot end. Once I've got something I'm satisfied with I'll post up the files in case anyone else wants to set up the machine how I have.
BTW brian thanks for sharing so many of your upgrades, I'm still eagerly awaiting some of your new stuff to get released
Thanks for the input guys!

This might give you some ideas for cooling the layers.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WSKhHEpB04[/youtube]

wow that thing is pretty cool! You gave me a great idea. Hmm, where can I get some of those fans.

The three fans are because if you only cool from one side, the leeward of the object looks sloppier than the windward. With three, it's pretty even. You just have to make sure not to run the fans on too high a setting, or you'll get stringing/jamming as your hot end boils the filament trying to keep up. It's better to let significant air wash outwards from the hot end, and to try to keep as much fan air away from the block as possible.

It's not feasible to totally protect the block, because the air (especially near the bed) will be turbulent and go everywhere. The better you can isolate the heater block, the better your prints will be.

ramai wrote:wow that thing is pretty cool! You gave me a great idea. Hmm, where can I get some of those fans.

Well, I looked for a while with no luck and the ATOM people wouldn't respond to emails. I ran across what I'm assuming are pretty close to what the ATOM 2.0 has at MPJA.com. At least it looks like the same form factor.

Currently I'm messing around with a setup on the Prometheus v2 hotend. Not sure how the aluminium mount will work being mounted directly to the heating block, but I should have it up and running tomorrow for testing. The fan casing is all metal, although the fan blade looks plastic.

[img]http://i482.photobucket.com/albums/rr18 ... 222728.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i482.photobucket.com/albums/rr18 ... 222742.jpg[/img]

This is awesome! I too have the Prometheus and I love it! I started out by bolting the layer fan directly to the cooling fins since there was 3 unused tapped holes there, and it actually worked pretty well! Tipping 2 fans seems to be one of the most elegant solutions to the cooling problem. I'm really looking forward to your results with this setup KAS. I want to do it like this too.

Well that was a failure, kind of expected I guess. The aluminium mount basically acted like a heat sink and it wouldn't get up to printing temps.

you should move the point where it mounts to the base of the cold section instead of the hot section, you only need 2 screws in the fans anyways.

v2 is in the works right now. The fans only have two mounting holes, top left and bottom right.

It looks like the metal is making a lot of contact with the heater block. If there was a silicone washer or some kind of spacer maybe it could still work.

I looked at mpja, it looked like they have 1 12v blower fan, is that the kind you got? I want to order some to play around with.

Opps, sorry about that. http://www.mpja.com/5VDC-Mini-CPU-Fan/p ... 2166%20FN/

I have a few high temp fiberglass washers I might try.

Are the fans running on 5v? I thought they were on 12v for some reason.
I think there is definitely room for 1 washer and 1 nut and the thickness of the mount. I have 2 nuts installed currently and and a very small heat zone and it never jams PLA.

ramai wrote:Are the fans running on 5v? I thought they were on 12v for some reason.
I think there is definitely room for 1 washer and 1 nut and the thickness of the mount. I have 2 nuts installed currently and and a very small heat zone and it never jams PLA.

You can run them series for 10v or parallel for 5v. I've been running one fan on the E3D v6 with no issues at full 12v for 6+ hours at a time. Or you can just dial back the percentage in your slicer to set it at your desire.
0(off) to 255(12v)

It would be best to make a shroud - could be metal - to go around the heater block, in order to keep the breeze away. Don't mount it to the hot end itself - it will just act like a heat sink. Mount it to the effector, and leave enough clearance that it won't touch the heater block anywhere.

Another solution people have used is to wrap the hot end in silicone tape. It won't stop the heat loss (since it's touching the metal directly) - but it will slow it down.

Definitely don't use the hot end itself to mount the shroud or the fans. Leave it be.

if you have motors in series failiure of 1 motor will kill the other one aswell

Hey sorry to resurect this thread from the grave, but I had stumbled upon this thread looking for a layer fan similar to the Atom 2.0.
I also wanted it to be as compact as possible because im using JFettig's enclosure.

The mount and layer fan are kind of exclusive to the E3D v6, because thats what I have, but they use the laptop fans that KAS was using.

I took alot of the information that you guys had come up with in this thread to design mine. It only used two fans like the Atom 2.0 for compactness and also to not have issues with the cooling fan getting in the way.
I have had really good success with it so far. I have 50 hours of prints on it, with a couple 12 hour prints.

One thing I should say is that if you use it, the fans need to be all the way in the mounts. I used a pair of large vice grips to get them in place. The fans are metal so your not going to damage them.

You can find the file here: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1176735

I would love feedback for anyone that finds some issues with it or any ideas to make it better! Thanks everyone!

Awesome job, glad someone else is using that fan. It's a screamer at full power.