CR-10 Blank Dual 120mm Fan Base by replayreb

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

I've only had my CR-10S for about two weeks and although I love the print quality the noise was unbearable. Watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jxmjpc5NfwM
I used the same phone to record both videos about two weeks apart. It is so dramatic that when I was editing the video to upload just now I noticed the sound amplitude bar on the after video was almost flat so I uploaded a screenshot of it.
I set the printer up in a bonus room upstairs on an Ikea HEMNES
Coffee table and while we couldn't hear the fan noise downstairs we could hear the stepper motors as the vibrations resonated loudly in the hollow floor and drywall between the first and second floors. The first step was to install NEMA dampeners on the X and Y axis stepper motors. The second was to print and install racquetball feet. That got rid of all the vibrations but I still didn't like how the CR-10's control box sounded like a 747 getting ready for takeoff so I replaced all the control box fans and that did quieten it down some but not much so I printed and installed Midevil1's excellent dual 120mm fan base and used two Noctua NF-S12A 120mm fans and that was the pièce de résistance! The S12's are quieter and move more air than the P12 or F12 versions making them ideally suited as a case fan. You would use the P12 or F12 for cooling a radiator since they have higher pressure but they are louder. I also ordered a Noctua NA-FC1 PWM fan controller so I could turn the fan speed down a bit if needed but it turned out it was completely unnecessary as the fans were whisper quiet at max speed so I removed the controller and direct wired the fans so there was one less thing that could go wrong. The only thing is I didn't need the wire grooves or exit holes on the fan base since I was powering the fans from the internal power supply so I filled them in and removed the CR-10 logos. I kept the control board fan as it is not very loud but I did remove the rear exhaust fan since I aimed my fans down to pull air from the bottom of the case. My reasoning is that there are vents at the top so I figured it would be better to pull in fresh air from there and have it blow across the main control board and then with the way the power supply is positioned most of the air is drawn down into it from the rear and blows across all the power supply components before exiting. Of course it will work fine blowing in but I think I remember reading somewhere that pulling air from a computer case produces better cooling than blowing air in. Oh and the other thing I did to quieten it down is to replace the hot end fan with a Noctua 40x10.