Finally finished my fan shroud

[dsnettleton]

I believe I was in the troubleshooting section of the forum when I mentioned I was working on a fan shroud for my rostock. I've spent a lot of time prototyping and reworking my shroud, and I'm very pleased with the final product, so I thought I'd share. This fits the new style (shorter) nozzles. I've uploaded it to thingiverse, so you can find it at http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:110305.

[JohnStack]

Nicely done!

[Eaglezsoar]

Which filament would benefit from this type of fan?

[dsnettleton]

ABS would benefit especially, since it tends to warp more, but a fan can help with PLA too. Really, this time of fan is for particular types of prints rather than particular types of filament. When you're printing very small surface areas, the layers sometimes don't have time to cool enough before the next layer is applied. This can lead to serious goopage. MHackney has a great post on fans in the troubleshooting section of the forums.

[September]

ABS would benefit especially, since it tends to warp more, but a fan can help with PLA too. Really, this time of fan is for particular types of prints rather than particular types of filament. When you're printing very small surface areas, the layers sometimes don't have time to cool enough before the next layer is applied. This can lead to serious goopage. MHackney has a great post on fans in the troubleshooting section of the forums.

Hey dsnettleton, could you verify that you meant ABS would benefit from this. I'm very new to 3D printing and the different filaments. Pretty much everything I've been reading on other sites and forums is that ABS doesn't require a fan and that PLA does.

I found this URL the other day and it seems like a very good write up of ABS vs PLA http://www.protoparadigm.com/blog/2013/ ... -printing/, it indicates that one needs to be very careful with using a fan on ABS as if you cool it too fast you risk losing the adhesiveness.




Anyway I'm trying to print this in ABS, probably too soon as I'm not quite fully calibrated. Anyway has anyone printed this with Repetier 0.90B and Slic3r 0.9.10b?

I get a few errors while running the slicer

20:25:55.263 : <Slic3r> Warning: The input file contains a hole near edge 4.324000,10.144000,33.630002-5.042000,10.576000,32.414003 (not manifold). You might want to repair it and retry, or to check the resulting G-code before printing anyway.

This was the error after I tried importing into MeshLab and exporting it back hoping it might resolve the first warning. After my current print I'll try loading the original and post the original warning/error that I got, don't remember now if it was the same or not.

Anyway awesome job on making it. Hopefully I can get it printed, then I'll try printing PLA.

[September]

ok confirmed same warning, don't know if it's important or not, after all it is just a warning.

What kind of settings are people using to print this? I get to about 14mm before the shroud side of the print get's dislodged from the bed. Could be that I still need to calibrate. But the fins don't support the shroud with my current settings. Perhaps I need to enable support material?

I'm using Repetier 0.90B and Slic3r 0.9.10b.

[dsnettleton]

Hey dsnettleton, could you verify that you meant ABS would benefit from this. I'm very new to 3D printing and the different filaments. Pretty much everything I've been reading on other sites and forums is that ABS doesn't require a fan and that PLA does.

That's right. ABS is terrible for warping. PLA does require a fan, but that fan should be directed at the hot-end, not at the workpiece (usually). So this fan shroud isn't what you need. As far as that goes, I just got a 20cm fan and it doesn't even need a shroud. It just wedges into the hot end assembly quite nicely. What this shroud is for is for certain types of prints where the layer below does not cool down fast enough for the next layer to be deposited safely. This creates a lot of gooping and can ruin the print without something to cool the filament.

There's a wonderful post by MHackney in the troubleshooting forum entitled "What's all this Hoopla about fans?" which is a good place to go if you'd like to know more.

[kbob]

There's a wonderful post by MHackney in the troubleshooting forum entitled "What's all this Hoopla about fans?" which is a good place to go if you'd like to know more.

Click-a-doodle-doo! What's all this Hoopla about fans?

Good info, and somehow I'd missed it all this time.