[Noob] effector fan

Hi, what is the purpose of the effector fan ?

edit : I mean, is it for cooling the filament AND the hotend ? Warming the air for not so much cooling the part ?
If I disable it, what will happen ?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/17/2015 01:36PM by Martoh.

Its primary purpose is to stop the hot end melting the effector.

Its secondary purpose is to cool the part, but as you have noticed because the air has already picked up heat from the hot end its already warmer, but its still cool enough to help with part cooling.

If you turn it off your effector will melt....DONT!

---

RepRapPro Mendel 3 Tricolour
RepRapPro Fisher
-Carbon Arms
-Easy adjust Carriage+effector
-axis stiffness mods
HE3D -600 delta
-Duet 0.8.5
-PanelDue
-DC42 Height probe
-RobotDigg metal components
Simplyfy3D
RS Design Spark CAD

Thank you for the answer.

So the greatest problem is the melting because the choice of arcylic ?
Could an effector in Alu or PEEK be better or is there other constraint I do not see ?

There is also the fire hazard, just got to look for the pictures of machines where the fans or thermisters failed to find evidence of that.

I guess if you manufactured the effect or from something more heat resistant then you would stop it melting, you may also want to consider the effects of thermal expansion and the burning hazards, and you may still want to have a fan if you want better cooling control, plus the additional weight may would have an effect of the machine performance.

---

RepRapPro Mendel 3 Tricolour
RepRapPro Fisher
-Carbon Arms
-Easy adjust Carriage+effector
-axis stiffness mods
HE3D -600 delta
-Duet 0.8.5
-PanelDue
-DC42 Height probe
-RobotDigg metal components
Simplyfy3D
RS Design Spark CAD

The PRIMARY reason for the fan is to keep a consistent filament melt zone in the nozzle, and to keep the heat centred on this area. That's how all our hot ends are designed, and how you get consistent extrusion. The heatsink and fan cool the top of the nozzle, so filament doesn't melt further up the nozzle, increasing the pressure needed to extrude. That's why the fan needs to run all the time. It's because of this design that we can mount it on printed parts and/or acrylic.

Ian
RepRapPro tech support.

Thanks both of you !

It's good to know the technicals reasons before messing everything.
Lack of experience for me, the Fisher is my first printer. And only my second experience in 3d printing. (a bad leapfrog at work)

I love my Fisher, but I still have some problems with accuracy and most of it come from the ball system. So I was looking for making some improvement.
With your infos, I know that I must keep the fan/heatsink/noozle system and play only around it.

And if I make mistakes... of course I'll make mistakes

I and a couple of others have done a lot of work improving the arms and balls, check out my build thread, my thread on carbon arms and the thread on printed arms

---

RepRapPro Mendel 3 Tricolour
RepRapPro Fisher
-Carbon Arms
-Easy adjust Carriage+effector
-axis stiffness mods
HE3D -600 delta
-Duet 0.8.5
-PanelDue
-DC42 Height probe
-RobotDigg metal components
Simplyfy3D
RS Design Spark CAD

I'm following your threads. I like your improvements, but as you said the material for the arms ends should be better than PLA. And I don't have access to other printers/materials.
And also, I feel that with the original ball system, movements are at the limits. One arm has already touch the screw on the fan and pushed it when I was printing a large part.
So I would like to try a system arm/magnet/ball (probably like the spiderbot if enough place) but don't want to make something wrong with the air flux and cooling/warming system.

Quote
Martoh
And also, I feel that with the original ball system, movements are at the limits. One arm has already touch the screw on the fan and pushed it when I was printing a large part.

This sounds like a build error, I dont recall this issue on mine when I has the acrylic arms, and I certainly dont have any motion limits with the carbon arms.

---

RepRapPro Mendel 3 Tricolour
RepRapPro Fisher
-Carbon Arms
-Easy adjust Carriage+effector
-axis stiffness mods
HE3D -600 delta
-Duet 0.8.5
-PanelDue
-DC42 Height probe
-RobotDigg metal components
Simplyfy3D
RS Design Spark CAD

For the fan screw, beware that the head of the screw maintaining the cable shall be on the arm side to avoid clearance problems. There shall be no washer under the head.