Hi there,
Are there any suggestions on how to reduce the noise of the fans?
I thought about buying Noctua fans but those are 12V, not 24V. The minimum size of those are also 40mm, which is good for the main fan but too big for the hotend fans (30mm) which are very loud, too.
Best regards
Fabian
You could look at placing dampers between the fan and the mounts, or printing mounts in flexible TPU filament.
I wish I had a working 3D printer... :-P
I’m also very disappointed about the high level of fan noise, specially the PS and control board fans. I have an older printer, dead quiet until it starts printing. Can we get the specs of these two fans?
Maybe something like this would be cool: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2580602
The PS use a 60mm fan, case a 40mm, hotend 30mm and print cooling are 50mm blower fan.
All are 24V.
You can pick anything with same size and voltage, but is not easy to find quieter ones.
You can also use 12v fan but need to add something to reduce voltage (or having fan in series).
Noctua made the most quiet 40 and 60mm fan, but both 12v (i'm planning to add them, since i have it from my previous printer).
The best are:
Noctua NF-A4x20 FLX, for the case
Noctua NF-A6x25 FLX, for the PSU
Noctua NF-A4x10 FLX, i think this could be used for the hot end, but you have to print a new support to attach them.
Again these are only 5v or 12v fan, if you use them directly on a 24v power supply you will destroy them, and don't use different fan in series :)
The blower fan are the hard part, you will find lot of online store claiming to have the most silent one, but they are almost all the same, someone say Sunon make silent blower fan, but i haven't tried one (you can also check here, keep in mind that low Air Flow mean less cooling).
Thanks, will look into those. Not worried about the part cooling blowers, I print petg, they are rarely turned on.
@dar.flem Noise level are 18 dBA for the A4x10, 15 for A4x20 and 20 for A6x25, they are very quiet. Sold at 12-15€ on Amazon. I'm waiting for https://www.amazon.it/dp/B01MQGMOKI to install them.
Also fans comes with "Low-Noise Adaptor"it reduce rpm, so noise (but also air flow)
https://noctua.at/en/nf-a4x10-flx/specification
https://noctua.at/en/nf-a4x20-flx/specification
https://noctua.at/en/nf-a6x25-flx/specification
For even more silent setup you can use A4x20 on the hot end too, but they are a bit bulkier.
@Andrea ordered! Spouse hates any noise ;-)
I installed both case and ali fan, now is dead silent. MAybe this can help someone:
- Watch out for the power converter, they have exposed connector and they short pretty much with everything (i wasted 2 of them), you can fold it with a heat shrink tube, they don't get to hot. Also watch out for polarity.
- Fan have 3 pin connector, the yellow cable is for rpm, you can just avoid it. The 40mm fan have a 3 to 2 pin connector, the 60 mm fan have a 3 to 4 pin connector, but the cable that goes from 3 to 4 are only 2, so you can just cut it and use as 3 to 2 connector
- The 60mm fan is a bit thick, it doesn't completely fit inside the ali case, but you can just leave the lid a bit open (without screw and by removing 2 metal tabs), the friction will keep it in place.
- For the ali i used the RC10 noise adapter, for the case nothing.
- I reused all the previous screw, for the 40mm you can use shorter one, but the original also work. Don't tighten too much, the fan plastic shouldn't touch the case, only the rubber feet should.
When i came back from holiday i will begin working on the hot end.
I also found, on thingiverse, some "adapter" that allow using a classic 40mm fan for the print cooling, this will be a future project.
Sounds great! 😉👍
Another question: did you have to dis-assemble the printer (printbed,...) to get access to the PSU to change it's fan?
@fg No, there are 2-3 screw on the side facing mobo, then you can slide the lid and removing it (is kept in place by 4 tabs, you see the cut on the side) . No need to remove the PSU.
I did also order the "package" from this thread. I really hope this kills the noise! :)
About the hotend fans: I found this here, which seems just small enough to be even useful for the dual hotend... https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3576316
Maybe it could hit the ooze shields but it looks as it might fit, even with the A4x20 which should be used with this adapter!
I've installed the Noctua case fan yesterday night and you can't hear it any more!
What I did was to cut the plug part (around 5cm) from the old fan and soldered it to the IN pads on the step down modules. Afterwards I used a multimeter to regulate down to 12V and soldered the universal adapter shipped with the fan to the OUT pads. Some shrinking tubes around the module will save me from shortening it. I had to glue the nuts from the old fan to the Noctua fan with some superglue and so I could use the screws, too. The gum things to connect case and fan didn't fit, they were too fat and too long long (even after cutting). Since you can't hear the fan anyway this doesn't matter to me.
My soldering iron died and doesn't heat up any more so I will take a look at the (much louder) PSU fan when the new soldering iron arrived!
Got both installed, it is quieter. The fan that goes into the power supply is too deep, so it hits some of the power supply parts and will not slid back on. I taped it...
Maybe printing a new part for the PSU lid could fix this issue? I will take a look at it.
I made lots of progress! After switching the case fan I also switched the PSU fan with a custom case lid printed for it. I would release it for the community but it doesn't work great and most of the parts have gone loose or broke apart while installing. It makes the nearly silent Noctua fan work like it should but again, it's crappy. If me redesign is printing and working well I can release it if interested.
Next is to replace the fans on the hotends as those two are now definitely the loudest part of the printer! A new TMC2100 is also ordered that will be used to have the Z stepper motors act more quiet.
Did you get that TMC2100 yet? I ordered 2xTMC2100 as I was thinking about switching the Z and E drivers to them.
@Bubblejunk Yes, sure! It's so absolutely quiet now! It was absolutely worth it. I didn't change the extruder's stepper driver. What I additionaly added were motor dampers: https://amzn.to/2HOF8rg
The only problem with these: if you use the heatsinks for the X motor and Z motor nearby you have problems with the USB slot (which is not a problem for me because of the raspberry using octoprint).
I am a bit crazy about noise, not only because I have my office next to the bedroom... ;)
@fg What did you set as Vref for the Z axis? Also been looking into the dampeners as well. Running the printer in my bedroom so trying to make it as silent as possible to allow sleeping while printing.