What's the best brand of fan to use
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I am using this one for E3D V6 heatshink 259-1550-ND and 259-1829-ND for material cooling. They are both 12V so I run on a small buck converter 24V -> 12V. Am very happy with them compare to the non name fans I had before.
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Sunon and Pabst make good quality industrial grade fans to suit many applications. You get a spec sheet and a reliable MTBF too. Noctua fans are fine, but might not be a good fit for your application.
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@bigwood247, also be aware that some fan don't respond well to PWM so for the material fan check with people that already use it.
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Depends on the type of fan or blower. For 5015 blower style fans I found that this Sunon to be the best:
https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/369-MF50151VXB00UA99Most powerful I could find. Running them at 60% for regular prints and at 100% for bridging or short layer times. Have tested it down to 5% PWM. It will start spinning at that low of a setting, when most other fans just make a humming noise, but refuse to start.
It's one of the few ones that actually creates decent pressure, so you can force the air through a smaller nozzle to increase air velocity (tested and measured) .
It's also based on a maglev system that should theoretically last forever.
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@bigwood247 Like most things, I find it's generally best to study specifications and pick a fan that meets one's requirements rather than simply buy any old fan just because it is made by a certain company. Vendors like Mouser or Digikey have very good comparison tables that allow you to compare things like flow rates, static pressure, bearing type and noise levels (as well as price). For reliability, the old adage "buy cheap, buy twice" is a good rule of thumb. Oh, and usually what kills airflow is ducting.
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It's funny, I've always used cheap arsed ebay fans, but I always use 24v.
Recently I bought some 40x15 and 40x20 fans for my printer on ebay, but they were quite a bit better quality and run well.
I've never had a problem running 10% fan in any case. I wonder if it's using 12v fans with a buck that gives PWM problems?
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@Corexy said in What's the best brand of fan to use:
........................ I wonder if it's using 12v fans with a buck that gives PWM problems?
Could be. I had some tiny 30mm fans that I used via a 24 to 12 V converter and managed to get them working well with PWM using a PWM frequency of 10Hz.
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@Corexy said in What's the best brand of fan to use:
I wonder if it's using 12v fans with a buck that gives PWM problems?
Did you connect the two inputs of the buck to the fan output of the duet (incorrect) or to the 24V output of the power supply (correct) ?
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@deckingman said in What's the best brand of fan to use:
Vendors like Mouser or Digikey have very good comparison tables that allow you to compare things...
That's correct, the parametric searches are very useful. One thing I couldn't find is specification of PWM compatibility. Is the PWM power we use to control fans actually supported and intended by fan vendors? These are brushless motor with electronic circuits that are also powered from the PWM.
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@zapta That's a good point. I tend to use 2 wire fans and haven't yet found one that I can't make work by adjusting the PWM frequency. I've heard some people say that Maglev fans don't work with PWM but that hasn't been my experience. Maybe I just got lucky with the particular Maglev fans I selected. But for sure, there are thousands of models out there.......
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@zapta said in What's the best brand of fan to use:
@Corexy said in What's the best brand of fan to use:
I wonder if it's using 12v fans with a buck that gives PWM problems?
Did you connect the two inputs of the buck to the fan output of the duet (incorrect) or to the 24V output of the power supply (correct) ?
I don't use a buck. I only use 24v, 2 wire fans with Duet.
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I personally use a lot of sunon as they are locally available
note that MagLev type fans from sunon and any other manufacturer that offer- magnetic levitation / magnetic bearing
- air levitation / air bearing
are not suited to be pwm-ed, they are expected to run at max speed non stop or not at all. even if the electronics inside allow them to run ok with pwm the mechanics is not designing to run at lower than 100%
the remaining options in most cases are "slieve" and "bearing" types, slieeve types are producing less noise but last not as long as the bearing types as the "slieve" wares out, fan start to rattle and stops working. Some slieve types are using plastic slieve, others use brass slieve but more/less it's a steel rod turning inside a bushing where bearing ones well have bearing (and they come in one bearing and 2 bearing variety where 2 bearing / double bearing ones last very very very very long but are of course noisier than all the others)
Noctua below 120mm is not very useful, basically on the small fan's the only thing they do to reduce noise is lower the CFM, there's no fancy fan shape on this size that matters, on the 120mm they do have, with special blade shape, less noise than most other competitor for same CFM .. so for 3d printer use, noctua is waste of money
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@arhi, do the rapid accelerations/decelerations of the print head factor in, as a contribution to fan wear? I would think that it's a very different environment than a fan on a stationary box.
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@zapta no clue, that's over my head. I just know from experience that magnetic and air "bearing" do not like to run below 100% and that was confirmed by a reply I got from some PRC engineers who's PLC's I was fixing on some glass machine, they explicitly said not to use maglev fans on few places as the fan's are PWM-ed below 100% ... and wrt sleeve / bearing / dual bearing you can find in the datasheets of the fan makers who make all different types, so you can compare the specs
I don't think I ever saw a spec wrt "moving env." but IMO I think our acceleration is way below any value that can really affect the miniature mass of the fan blades on the fans we use. And I had a steel "frame with 120mm fans" drop to a concrete floor from ~2m height while all 8 fans were running, acceleration strong enough to have sheared 4 M4 screws connecting that frame the the heatsink on the back, and fans continued to run, no fins got away
... so, IMHO, I doubt our moving head affects these 40mm fans or 5015 blowers in any way
