Creator Pro Fan for Right Extruder by progers123

Last crawled date: 4 years ago

So there is the obvious flaw with this printer and that the extruder fan only hits the left extruder and its not a good duct regardless. I know there are already some solutions for different ducts that hit both the extruders, but that is then splitting the flow or air. There is also the issue that the current fan is not adjustable and it just has a single power setting. I wanted to come up with a solution to both of these problems.
Supplied you will need.
-2x M3 nut and screw
-24V turbo fan (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DQ7F1T7/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
-24V Power Adaptor (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07QVXYBDC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
-electrical tape
-extra wire
I set out to develop a second fan that could be mounted onto the carriage and cool the right extruder filament. The support structure is fairly self explanatory I think. Glue some nuts into the slots for them and then its best to use some super glue in attaching the two pieces for the slot is not 100% structurally sound. Once the fan support is assembled, simply remove the old fan cover and add this one on and then attach the fan to it.
Before attaching the fan to the support, remove the adaptor from the wires and extend them by about 1ft (or more depending on your set up). This will give some slack for the fan to travel around without pulling on the cords. Then connect them to the power supply, or a breadboard like I did. On mine, I also added a LED (included 10k resistor) in parallel to indicate if the fan was on or off. You will also want to attach the duct to the fan at this point. I designed the duct to be a tight fit so might take some force, be careful not to break the fan, plastic is week.
Once this is done, attach the fan to the support structure, and plug everything in and test.
IMPORTANT
-verify that the duct lines up with extruder and is not lower than it. This has not happened to me, but would be bad if somehow was.
-Done use the full 24V currently. The duct is not able to support that amount of air flow and will cause additional stress on the fan motor. I find that around 16V is currently a good point. I am working on the duct system for this.
-Do not print with duct attached and fan not running. This will likely melt the duct.
-you might need to print at a slightly higher temp due to the increased cooling on the extruder
Initial testing
The pictures above are of some overhang tests that I did with my adapter and what I consider to be the next best solution (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1675208) and the results are good. The overhang stays relatively stable up to 70 degrees with my adapter compared to about 55 degrees with the dual adapter. This is printing with standard settings using Flashprint.
Bridge testing- I did one bridge test and it bridge 6in VERY well. When I get to it I will test a 8.5" brige (mx of my printer) and test that and report results. It does seam that with this adapter, supports will be needed much much less.
So it does look like this will provide an improvement over the dual fan adapter that is currently used by most for dual extruding projects. It will take some time and fine tuning to figure out the best settings and fan speeds.
FUTURE WORK
I am working on a better duct system. This takes some thought and consideration into what the best design will be. Maybe multiple types of ducts will be needed depending on the project. If anyone has thoughts on this I will be happy to hear them. While this system is good, I think it has the potential to be a substantial upgrade to these printers.
Dont forget that tip designer button exists. This upgrade will certainly save you some prints in the future and when fully working, might even enable some prints that were not previously possible. Worth a $3 beer to the creator if you ask me :)
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