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.