Adding a fan and thermal insulation to the hot end

It seems that a fan is nowadays one of the required elements to get good printing quality. As I tried adding a fan to my 3D concoction, I saw my hot end loosing heat faster than fast.

As I read different forum posts, I saw the same problem popping here and there. The fan must be positioned carefully as to avoid the hot end losing its coveted energy.

What I didn't read anywhere was about adding some sort of insulation to the hot end to ensure it stays as hot as possible even under the breeze of a fan. Has anybody tinkered with adding insulation? I am thinking about adding some silicon to shield my heat block, but wanted to see if there were some reported failure/success stories and make sure I don't repeat the same blunders somebody else may have tried.

A fan is not required for printing ABS. A lot of people need it for printing PLA if you want to print fast. I started out printing PLA at slow speed (30 mm/s or less) with success before switching to printing mainly ABS.

You can insulate the heating block and some people have done that. But the nozzle would be hard to insulate. If you blow the fan over the nozzle, I would expect it to cool down the nozzle and affect the extrusion. So, it's best to direct the air mostly on the part and give just enough to cool the part so that it hardens before the next layer is printed.

You should also re-tune your hot end PID settings if you are running a fan on it since you are significantly changing it's typically operating environment. If you run marlin, do the autopid tune again with the fan running.