Materia 101: Installing A More Efficient Fan System

Materia 101

<h3 >1. The existing fan setup</h3><p >The fan on the Materia 101 is located on the front of the x carriage. It’s a standard 40x40x10 mm fan and it has no duct. The trouble with this is that the fan itself is not focused enough and it left me results inconsistent depending on which side of the object was facing the fan. The side facing the fan looked good but the other side was deforming.</p><figure><img src= /><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><h3 >2. The new setup</h3><p >In the  configuration we are suggesting here, we add a bigger fan and a duct.</p><p ><span >By adding a duct you get a narrow beam of air. This will cause less drooping and warping, by cooling the material faster while it is being laid out. I found </span><a href="http://bit.ly/1MrVil0">the duct shown in the picture below made by Alessandro Damiani on thingiverse</a><span > and it seemed to do the trick.</span></p><figure><img src= /><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><h3 >3. Changing the bracket to fit the Materia 101</h3><p ><span >However Alessandro's design was made for the Sharebot NG which has a slightly different x-carriage, therefore. I changed the angle of the fastening angle bracket. You </span><a href="https://docs.google.com/a/arduino.cc/uc?id=0B2bqiaE1rzP7TTJSRVVnWnRvcW8&export=download">can download the changed STL here</a><span >.</span></p><figure><img src= /><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><h3 >4. Replacing the fan (BIGGER IS BETTER)</h3><p >I exchanged the existing fan (40x40x10 mm) with a thicker fan (40x40x20 mm). The airflow was slightly more powerful than the old fan and it did improve my prints.</p><figure><img src= /><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><h3 >5. The results</h3><p >Here is a comparison picture. On object number 2 I used the original fan setup and on number 1 used my modified fan setup. As you can see, the amount of defects is much reduced in object number 1.</p><figure><img src= /><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><h3 >6. The only drawback</h3><p >The old fan did not interfere with the clamps on the glass print surface, the added duct does this, if ever so slightly. If you don’t need to use the entire print surface, you won’t notice this.</p>

Materia 101: Installing A More Efficient Fan System

Printing PLA often requires proper cooling. Improve your Materia 101 fan system with a bigger fan and a fan duct design.