Thanks for that! After getting frustrated using these tools at first, I figured that it was worth spending some time to find better simpler ways to do it. It's really easy to do now and the software isn't holding anyone back like I found that it was as first. I'm glad you found it helpful!
@@NeedItMakeIt It's a great balance of showing how to do something without creating a super-long tutorial video on how to use the program. Instead, it's a real-world project that you can see how all the processes come together.
Hold your pointer fingers in the air pointing up and imagine a curved line connecting them, like a half circle. Move your fingers around and imagine how the shape of the line would change. Heck you can even do this with something like a piece of rubber hose. That's 3D sketching! It's just a line between two points in 3D space.
Great content, well done. I would just like to add some minor details to the overall great video. 1. When designing fan ducts follow some simple rule of thumb like these: Make the cross section as big as possible, keep this cross section for as long as possible, take the most direct way with least amount of curves and use as shallow of curves as you can, to decrease the air resistance. 2. When creating the 3D curve (or 2D, does not matter) use tangential constraints at the end of the line, to have a "perpendicular" transition from one plane into an other.
Ok, I'm new here, love 3D printing and designing, but legit hit subscribe in under a minute based on just how soothing you speak, its like knowledge and antianxiety in one
I'm so grateful for videos like these. I lose interest or give up when following along F360 tutorials making random stuff that I don't care about. However, 3d printing is life so I am able to enthusiastically learn and follow this type of tutorial. 2 thumbs up!
I used your 3 Vent Shroud from the last video in the T1 FLSUN sent me - it works great! Kudos for actually improving the T1 instead of just throwing rocks: it’s a printer I am enjoying very much.
It was my pleasure! I think we're going to end up with something even better in the next weeks and months as we start to gain an overall better understanding of cooling. I still like my T1 as well, I guess people had a bad taste in their mouth about the way it and the S1 were marketed. I enjoy mine as well, and the quality seems pretty good, I just find that the calibration process is a bit more important than on my other printers. How do you find the sound level on your T1 fan?
For sure! There are also some more advanced ways to use it, like adding a sketch along the path which allows us to change the shape all while using a single sketch for the spline for a nice flowing shape which can change shape as many times as we'd like it to. Probably not too useful, but it may come in handy here or there.
Great video! It is awesome what we can do nowadays basically producing almost anything we can imagine, and at home! What a "cool" design... really, it is cool looking and also looks like it has a lot of potential. Cheers
Thank you very much! You've got it, if something is broken, we can fix it, if it needs to be improved, we can do it, and better yet, we can do it as a community. It's also really amazing to think that this tech is going to get better and better, soon we'll have metal 3D printers, the prints will be strong enough to last. I would like to see some inexpensive in-home filtration systems setup or at least filtration within a room so that we can print without having the worry about long-term health impacts.
You're very welcome, I'm happy to share what I've learned! It was pretty painful at first, with a few small adjustments to the process it became soooo much easier and now, creating a custom duct from scratch is about 1/2 an hour or less from start to finish (-print time 😊)
Thank you very much! There is so much to learn and explore and also huge leaps in technology in a short time. I'm looking forward to what the future brings and what we'll be able to do ourselves at home as more advanced tech becomes available to us to use at home.
I wasn't using it much, it was far too frustrating, but not, it's a piece of cake and I'm using it all of the time. All of those extra points were adding far too much work, as they say "Less is more".
Resin print this and see the difference. internally the path is so nice and smooth , I don’t have my comparison video of my design on my type a printer but it definitely made a difference.
This is getting mighty close to how I did my first fan duct several years ago. The next thing was to not only hit the filament from all angles, but to ensure all outlets had about the same amount of air flowing. In my case I used a ring design around the V6 heater block and estimated the opening size based on the amount of CFM's. The Bambu has the advantage here were it has the auxilary ducts when you just need more air. I had to use a big box fan! Those were the days!
This is sooo cool! I have found 3D sketches to be super useful, but you're definitely making it accessible and practical. Really excited for the challenge!
I also just experimented with changing the shape multiple times along the path and it worked really well, adding a profile sketch to a plane along path worked perfectly. It's probably not too useful, but still really cool to be able to do. I'll have the challenge info coming up shortly. I think I'm going to need to buy more filament!
@@NeedItMakeIt I think especially for 3D printing it's very useful since organic and flowing shapes are so much easier than with subtractive manufacturing such as CNC machining. 😁
If the inflow is evenly distributed (pressure) then I would adjust the diameter in proportion to the length of the individual tunnels. you can then create a more even vortex with a defuser lip at the outlet. greetings and keep up the good work
Idea: If you draw the end-shape of your ducts far below the nozzle-plane, and later slice all the ducts off (boolean with a box) just a hair above the nozzle-tip, you get ... don't know how to describe that ... syringe-like outlets, and can probably get closer to the nozzle-tip. If that helps anything, I don't know. But I guess it would look dope :)
Thank you so much for that explanation of the 3D modelling, i have some basic tools but would never be able to do something like this without a guideline
One thing I think you are forgetting: there are circular vortex ducts that go around the whole nozzle, I want to see those tested against the others. They should give the best vortex cooling of all of them!
I'm interested in this as well though my experience is that, if you don't leave an escape path for the pressure, you get turbulent masses around the nozzle that don't contribute to cooling.
5:45 I'm not saying you should do this, but I've been using a PLA cooling duct for close to 3 years on an OG Ender3 now and it hasn't failed me, hasn't even deformed for that matter. I assume it's because the cool air is actually keeping the duct itself below 60°C (I've got a thermocouple that I could check that with, maybe I should get around to doing so one day, but for now the empirical results are enough for me). So yeah, it's probably safer to use a heat-resistant material, especially if you run some prints without cooling, but just take my experience as one data point that PLA is actually viable for cooling ducts, even if for nothing else than testing your design without spending your more expensive filaments on the final version. Edit: Just did a temp measurement during an ABS print at 250°C (don't worry, I have an all metal hotend), 80°C bed, 60% fan speed, ~40°C enclosure temp (measured at top of enclosure), fan duct nozzle temp 47°C.
This has been my experience too - I've printed ducts and other 'hot end related' things in PLA, some running for significant periods of time, and I've never noticed anything deform or give cause for concern
It really depends on what printer you're putting it on. An ender 3 that sees only pla? probably fine, just have a spare for safety. An enclosed printer printing abs/asa? It won't survive 2 prints
I think you're assuming one will print w/ a low temp filament like PLA. Or maybe Ender3 hotend can't get hot enough. if you are printing enclosed w/ anything above PLA temps, you're asking for deformation
Enclosed printers might get too hot, but has anyone actually tried it? With an open printer it's definitely not a problem. Even with the duct uncomfortably close to the heater block, as long as you have a silicone sock on it (and why wouldn't you) it will be fine. You don't even need to be running the (part cooling) fan.
@@Kinoko314 My enclosure goes up to 40°C, which is enough for ABS (though admittedly on the lower end, but I've never had problems with warping or delaminating, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) and again, my PLA fan ducts have held up so far. I actually just checked with a thermal probe and the temps in the nozzle at 60% fan speed are just five degrees above ambient, so I stand by what I"ve said. "It works for me" is a shitty argument, I know, but I can't do much more than share my experience. Again, if you want something that's definitely reliable, use PETG or ABS like most people will recommend, but PLA is not impossible.
Just putting it out there as I haven't seen it done before but if you've ever seen vorticies coming off wing tips then maybe this type of airflow can be utilised to cool an overhang from underneath as well as from the top. I just don't know if the air speed would be enough to generate enough of the desired effect.
I'm still using an old Prusa MK2S and have been trying to figure out upgrading it to get a better fan duct. After watching this I may just try to design my own!
I tried the first method you mentioned and got super frustrated. Thank you for this guide! If you have anything else cad related to share, please do so.
I'm with you on that; it took me at least an entire day to come up with the simplified version. I didn't find many good videos on the subject when I went looking. I have quite a bit of CAD experience, so I can certainly share what I know. If there is anything specific you'd like to see, please let me know.
I've found that when doing stuff like this its easier to do a short straight line before doing the spline. Its easier to do a mate with the small straight line to the existing geometry as well as then mate the spline to the small straight line.
What I dont like about all these designs is that the ducts are always directed at the tip of the nozzle. This isnt ideal because you do not actually want to cool the nozzle. I use a slightly modified version of the Mini Satsana and I have realized that I need to run way higher hot end temperatures, at least it feels like it. Can you test if shielding the nozzle from the airstream has some advantages? I would expect that this could result in smaller need of high hot end temps and maybe more consistent extrusion. But Medusa looks cool, not gonna lie.
@@tommihommi1 Yeah, but you are still cooling the nozzle which isnt meant to be cooled at all. That can sureley be mitigated by just upping the energy throughput into the nozzle (eg higher nozzle temps), but can have negative effects on consistency of the print, especially if fanspeeds change. I certaintly dont know how great the effect is but I think there is at least some energy to be preserved. I have to print at 225°C (PLA) with my Ender 3 at 60mm/s Outer Walls and 120mm/s+ Infill/Inner walls. I bet that if the nozzle wasnt affected by airflow as much, that the extruded volume per second can be higher or the nozzle temp can be lowered... but that is to be tested. At the end of the day this is called "part cooling" and not nozzle cooling 🙂
@@heavyweight6440 Mike and I have been discussing all this with others and yes generally we think cooling the nozzle itself is a bad idea. Rather, you want to cool the filament just below the nozzles and also have some general cooling around the spot currently being printed. Adding some shielding is a good idea! The awesome thing is, with the upcoming challenge you'll be able to design and submit something.
Might I suggest putting these models through Autodesk CFD for flow analysis to determine if the manifold on the Medusa is evenly distributing airflow? (or any future designs, for that matter) Manifolds can be tricky to balance distribution evenly. Flow simulations will help analyze and permit optimization of flow for even distribution. It can also help optimize the individual runner shapes to balance velocity across all outlets. This is much more accurate and faster to do in software prior to printing and testing the design.
I read somewhere that the maximum angle at which you should redirect airflow is around 11°, until the resistance increases over a point it's not really an efficient duct anyme. Im not sure how this applies to those organic surfaces, but I'd be afraid the medusa would require a lot of static pressure to work in any meaningful way, probably making it impossible to run on one or two 5015s. Really looking forward to more testing on that one.
Worked on a fan duct for my Ender 3 a while ago, so this video would have been very helpful 😀 I had found a good video back then where it was explained how to simulate the airflow. Have you tried simulating the airflow with SimScale ?
The Medusa! KEKW 2:01 not sure if you know about making slots in ur sketch (I didn't until recently, which is why I'm saying this), but it's very useful for those shapes I also really like the idea of having each of the ducts touching each other so they can provide support along the way
Good call my friend, I do use the slots, but for some reason it didn't occur to me at that moment. I was undecided at the beginning whether a rectangle would be best and ended up with a slot. Your method would have been better to use for sure. Having the ducts tough just barely worked out great, it really did a good job of stiffening it up, and it was fairly easy to do, I more or less eyeballed it. It gives a nice welded look. I think the organic shapes are so cool looking, very unique. I'm super curious what people will come up with for the competition coming up.
not sure if you're set up to do it, but I'm curious if you see any testable benefit from vapor smoothing your cooling manifold? I'm also curious if vapor smoothing even works with ABS GF
I think that's an awesome idea. I don't have a setup to do this and I have no idea with the GF either, that's a video idea on its own I think. It occurred to me that resin smoothing the interior may work well, I'd need some method of measuing the output of each port.
Amazing work. It gives me a lot of ideas. Would it be worth testing if the output from each hole is equal? You may be able to split the channels for even distribution in the manifold.
Thanks! I was hoping that it would give other people some ideas too. I found this process to be super frustrating at first; after fine-tuning it a bit, it's super easy and I'm using it all of the time.
Is there a link to the test coupon? Also: long, high-aspect ratio (i.e., "thin") ducts are going to be pretty lossy, so I'm surprised that having airflow from more directions is offsetting the inefficiency of such noodly ducts. Very interesting!
To maximize the air flow, they need to have the same length and the same output from the fan, it´s like sport car mufflers. In your model, the short duct have more air flow than the others.
That's correct, this is why in the Medusa, I've created the manifold to allow the air to more easily flow into the longer ducts, and less-so into the shorter. It in this case worked out pretty nice for balancing, but not perfect of course. Too much air seems to be coming from the longer ducts in this case, so more adjustment is required.
Thanks for the tutorial! I dont actually need more cooling, but on a SV06+ the stock cooler is pretty poor in the sense that it blocks almost all visibility to the nozzle when printing, so I've wanted to mount it behind the extruder. So I might as well do this style of cooler
@@eslmatt811 That's a cool idea! In my case it's not really the access, but visibility. If I want to see if my first layer is coming out nice, or if the nozzle is clean, I have to look at it at a really awkward angle.
What if you make two (or more) ducts pointing at the nozzle from opposite sides, but make them shoot air in sequence (left right left right)? Would that make them not cancel eachother out?
I've tested one very similar in the previous video, it had overall good cooling capability, however the results on one side vs the other were quite different and the overall ranking ended up around the middle of the pack, it had slightly better performance than the dual duct with opposing ducts, which was a bit surprising at first.
Correct me if I'm wrong but don't the lengths of each duct need to be similar to avoid pressure imbalances? I assume most of the air will travel down the shortest tubes.
I don't think you're wrong, what I've done to mitigate this issue a bit is to have the most accessible path to the longest ducts using the manifold on the rear, and then to the next longest, and so on. I still have yet to learn SimScale, so I'll see what I can figure out to get it just right.
in the double example, they were going to be very close, in the Medusa, that's not the case, to get around this issue I created the manifold to more easily allow the air to flow into the longer ducts and less-so into the shorter ones. The result was fairly well balanced, of course I could also fine-tune it to do a bit better as well.
Nah, you're making the assumption that the air will be evenly distributed. Also, you just made a vortex *around* the plastic, you want as much air to hit the exact same spot. Whilst the medusa is a great idea, there's huge room for improvement!!
That's the plan, we'll do the X1, P1, Q1, K1... just realizing that these printers all have a 1 for some reason, strange. I want to have the challenge first and then we can adapt the duct to fit every popular printer out there.
No dumb questions 😊 So... the nozzle is heated because it has to melt the filament, but once the filament has been extruded we would like it to cool down/solidify as fast as possible. At least that's my understanding.
Another thing to consider is what material are you printing. PLA loves cooling, ABS will split and warp if you are not blowing hot air at it. Always research the material when trying something new.
That's a good point. When Prusa updated their mk2 to 2.5, the design put the blower directly on the hotend. without adding a silicone sock and a modded duct, i got thermal runaway errors. too much cooling on the nozzle is problematic
I used AutoCAD, Archicad and SketchUp (architect). What's the best FREE 3dCad for 3dprinting? I'm independent/private professional with no money to invest witout a good profit. I've been on this since the 90's.😮😢
Onshape. Its not sure it will always be free, but the entry level is much easier than freecad. Also, plan to spend some hours learning those software, since parametric modeling is quite different than non parametric software
At the end you mention any printer but the one you’re using has a really high pressure fan that can manage with such constructed ducts? These designs might choke out a normal fan on a printer Also can you detail how you made the mounting points? Was is with more lofts or the automate tool?
True enough, I suppose that we need to delve into that a bit more. I think most printers have a type of blower fan these days, whether it's enough... we'd need to create them and test them on those printers to be sure. As we gain a better understanding of what makes a good duct I can see being able to adjust the design for each printer to have the same principles of cooling applied but with slight modifications to suit each printer fan setup. Good call on that! The mounts were made using the loft command as well, the way I did this was to create a plane just low enough to completely cover the ducts, then I used the Spline again and created a "U" shape to somewhat follow the curve of the duct. I lofted the mount to the "U" shape and then I used Subtract to make sure that the mounts would meet the ducts perfectly. I did this before hollowing so I didn't end up with too many extra bodies.
@@NeedItMakeIt thanks for the details. I think the printer you’re using has a very powerful fan so I would definitely think it worthwhile to compare it to the 5015 blowers many printers have! Certainly axial fans will choke!
Thanks for the guide, I have always struggled with this. Also, since you have the X1, K1 and the Q1 Pro for long term, can you compare them and make video about it?
Some filaments more than others, yes. If we tried this on ABS, I think we may run into some problems, but it's worth a try. With super fast printing, we don't really have a choice, my only thought is that blowing slightly warm air is better than blowing cold air when it comes to warpage. It's certainly something we'd need to consider.
@@NeedItMakeIt It is free for non-commercial use. I transitioned from a full student license to the free one and as far as I can tell, about 90% of the features are still available to me, only some advanced stuff like exporting to some exotic file formats and creating printable drawings with the design tools aren't.
im new to 3d printing. is there a print anywhere for P1S nozzle attachment? or this is kinda encouraging you to make your own. your videos are great thanks
honestly, in my experience, the friction losses from these long paths almost always outweigh any potential benefit from redirecting the air in so controlled a fashion It would be interesting to see you test a duct that is just as short as possible, and directs your air at the print from one direction. I bet you'll get the best results out of everything just by doing that at least, that was my experience!
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I have a duct like that and it sucks. Since its most of the time coming from the wrong direction.
Maybe so! I think with the CPAP style of fan, which is more of a compressor, it may not act in the same way as a traditional 3D printer fan. I'd have to find a way to measure the difference. I suppose maybe having a short duct and having a very long one, the mouth of the duct is identical on both and sending the air in exactly the same direction as well. Do you think that smoothing the interior would help, or coating it with a hydrophobic material?
I think the air placement is very important, I'll be showing this better in the next video, we're going to actually see the air...well that's the plan anyway. Hopefully it can help to understand cooling a bit better.
I love how these videos are mini courses in Fusion 360. I won’t be printing cooling ducts, but my knowledge has definitely leveled up! 🤯
Thanks for that! After getting frustrated using these tools at first, I figured that it was worth spending some time to find better simpler ways to do it. It's really easy to do now and the software isn't holding anyone back like I found that it was as first. I'm glad you found it helpful!
@@NeedItMakeIt It's a great balance of showing how to do something without creating a super-long tutorial video on how to use the program. Instead, it's a real-world project that you can see how all the processes come together.
Thanks, I was wondering what the software was. I am new to 3D design, this kind of content is invaluable!
3d sketch is short circuiting my brain. You made it look easy
Hold your pointer fingers in the air pointing up and imagine a curved line connecting them, like a half circle. Move your fingers around and imagine how the shape of the line would change. Heck you can even do this with something like a piece of rubber hose. That's 3D sketching! It's just a line between two points in 3D space.
i guess you could imagine it as an infinite array of 2d sketches, aligned next to each other in a third direction
Great content, well done. I would just like to add some minor details to the overall great video.
1. When designing fan ducts follow some simple rule of thumb like these: Make the cross section as big as possible, keep this cross section for as long as possible, take the most direct way with least amount of curves and use as shallow of curves as you can, to decrease the air resistance.
2. When creating the 3D curve (or 2D, does not matter) use tangential constraints at the end of the line, to have a "perpendicular" transition from one plane into an other.
I like that you make interesting, versatile videos about 3d printing.
You make them entertaining , illustrative and very often ❤
just discovered your channel, your video's are really well made! Concise, no filler and you have a way of explaining really well
Ok, I'm new here, love 3D printing and designing, but legit hit subscribe in under a minute based on just how soothing you speak, its like knowledge and antianxiety in one
I'm so grateful for videos like these. I lose interest or give up when following along F360 tutorials making random stuff that I don't care about. However, 3d printing is life so I am able to enthusiastically learn and follow this type of tutorial. 2 thumbs up!
I used your 3 Vent Shroud from the last video in the T1 FLSUN sent me - it works great! Kudos for actually improving the T1 instead of just throwing rocks: it’s a printer I am enjoying very much.
It was my pleasure! I think we're going to end up with something even better in the next weeks and months as we start to gain an overall better understanding of cooling. I still like my T1 as well, I guess people had a bad taste in their mouth about the way it and the S1 were marketed. I enjoy mine as well, and the quality seems pretty good, I just find that the calibration process is a bit more important than on my other printers. How do you find the sound level on your T1 fan?
It's all fun and games until fusion tells you that "the loft intersects itself"
I haven’t had a need to design anything similar yet, but this has definitely put some new tools in the shed. Thanks!
For sure! There are also some more advanced ways to use it, like adding a sketch along the path which allows us to change the shape all while using a single sketch for the spline for a nice flowing shape which can change shape as many times as we'd like it to. Probably not too useful, but it may come in handy here or there.
Great video! It is awesome what we can do nowadays basically producing almost anything we can imagine, and at home! What a "cool" design... really, it is cool looking and also looks like it has a lot of potential. Cheers
Thank you very much! You've got it, if something is broken, we can fix it, if it needs to be improved, we can do it, and better yet, we can do it as a community. It's also really amazing to think that this tech is going to get better and better, soon we'll have metal 3D printers, the prints will be strong enough to last. I would like to see some inexpensive in-home filtration systems setup or at least filtration within a room so that we can print without having the worry about long-term health impacts.
MEDUSA!! 😂 I love it. So much cooling it turns the molten filament to stone.
I'd like to thank you so much for this. Quick and easy guide to a thing I've been putting off for too long.
You're very welcome, I'm happy to share what I've learned! It was pretty painful at first, with a few small adjustments to the process it became soooo much easier and now, creating a custom duct from scratch is about 1/2 an hour or less from start to finish (-print time 😊)
this guy is definitly underated in youtube
Thank you very much! There is so much to learn and explore and also huge leaps in technology in a short time. I'm looking forward to what the future brings and what we'll be able to do ourselves at home as more advanced tech becomes available to us to use at home.
Im working on a new duct for my old v6 hotend and yeah, this knowledge will help me a lot. thanks for making these vids, man!
Never used 3D sketching before now I need to try it.
I wasn't using it much, it was far too frustrating, but not, it's a piece of cake and I'm using it all of the time. All of those extra points were adding far too much work, as they say "Less is more".
NIce job! I like the organic look and the texture of green ABS GF.
yes it looks really snakelike in the green filament
This was a great video, a little CAD tutorial with 3D printing application. SUBSCRIBED
Resin print this and see the difference. internally the path is so nice and smooth , I don’t have my comparison video of my design on my type a printer but it definitely made a difference.
Ive been doing advanced cad models for a while...and this video basically told me ive been doing it the damn hard way 😂
Hi from Brazil. I love your videos. I always learn something new
I can't wait to see this getting improved even more. I am inspired to make my own now and maybe do some flow testings in SolidWorks
man SolidWorks never wants to work for me. I can't get the loft thing right, it just doesn't want to perform the loft
I put it into Fusion and fusion worked, until it didn't. I think the amount of space that I have is too limited to create a good loft or something.
Good work! I didn't even know about 3d sketch, now I have something new to learn.
This is getting mighty close to how I did my first fan duct several years ago. The next thing was to not only hit the filament from all angles, but to ensure all outlets had about the same amount of air flowing. In my case I used a ring design around the V6 heater block and estimated the opening size based on the amount of CFM's. The Bambu has the advantage here were it has the auxilary ducts when you just need more air. I had to use a big box fan! Those were the days!
That method is great, would needed similar things so many times which I couldnt model before this tip
This is sooo cool! I have found 3D sketches to be super useful, but you're definitely making it accessible and practical. Really excited for the challenge!
I also just experimented with changing the shape multiple times along the path and it worked really well, adding a profile sketch to a plane along path worked perfectly. It's probably not too useful, but still really cool to be able to do. I'll have the challenge info coming up shortly. I think I'm going to need to buy more filament!
@@NeedItMakeIt I think especially for 3D printing it's very useful since organic and flowing shapes are so much easier than with subtractive manufacturing such as CNC machining. 😁
@@NeedItMakeIt Oh and... Filament sponsor? I'm sure someone would love to sponsor the challenge. Qidi maybe?
If the inflow is evenly distributed (pressure) then I would adjust the diameter in proportion to the length of the individual tunnels. you can then create a more even vortex with a defuser lip at the outlet.
greetings and keep up the good work
Idea:
If you draw the end-shape of your ducts far below the nozzle-plane, and later slice all the ducts off (boolean with a box) just a hair above the nozzle-tip, you get ... don't know how to describe that ... syringe-like outlets, and can probably get closer to the nozzle-tip.
If that helps anything, I don't know. But I guess it would look dope :)
Thank you so much for that explanation of the 3D modelling, i have some basic tools but would never be able to do something like this without a guideline
Watch tutorials, take it one step at a time, start messing around, and you'll get it really quick!
Those angle handles can also be constrained. I find using the horizontal/vertical constraint on the green handles to be super handy
How's progress on the saddle? Hope you haven't abandoned it.
One thing I think you are forgetting: there are circular vortex ducts that go around the whole nozzle, I want to see those tested against the others. They should give the best vortex cooling of all of them!
I'm interested in this as well though my experience is that, if you don't leave an escape path for the pressure, you get turbulent masses around the nozzle that don't contribute to cooling.
This is one of the best tutorials on this topic I've ever seen, thank you!
Awesome, that's so nice to hear, I really appreciate it!
5:45 I'm not saying you should do this, but I've been using a PLA cooling duct for close to 3 years on an OG Ender3 now and it hasn't failed me, hasn't even deformed for that matter. I assume it's because the cool air is actually keeping the duct itself below 60°C (I've got a thermocouple that I could check that with, maybe I should get around to doing so one day, but for now the empirical results are enough for me). So yeah, it's probably safer to use a heat-resistant material, especially if you run some prints without cooling, but just take my experience as one data point that PLA is actually viable for cooling ducts, even if for nothing else than testing your design without spending your more expensive filaments on the final version.
Edit: Just did a temp measurement during an ABS print at 250°C (don't worry, I have an all metal hotend), 80°C bed, 60% fan speed, ~40°C enclosure temp (measured at top of enclosure), fan duct nozzle temp 47°C.
This has been my experience too - I've printed ducts and other 'hot end related' things in PLA, some running for significant periods of time, and I've never noticed anything deform or give cause for concern
It really depends on what printer you're putting it on.
An ender 3 that sees only pla? probably fine, just have a spare for safety.
An enclosed printer printing abs/asa? It won't survive 2 prints
I think you're assuming one will print w/ a low temp filament like PLA. Or maybe Ender3 hotend can't get hot enough. if you are printing enclosed w/ anything above PLA temps, you're asking for deformation
Enclosed printers might get too hot, but has anyone actually tried it? With an open printer it's definitely not a problem. Even with the duct uncomfortably close to the heater block, as long as you have a silicone sock on it (and why wouldn't you) it will be fine. You don't even need to be running the (part cooling) fan.
@@Kinoko314 My enclosure goes up to 40°C, which is enough for ABS (though admittedly on the lower end, but I've never had problems with warping or delaminating, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) and again, my PLA fan ducts have held up so far. I actually just checked with a thermal probe and the temps in the nozzle at 60% fan speed are just five degrees above ambient, so I stand by what I"ve said. "It works for me" is a shitty argument, I know, but I can't do much more than share my experience.
Again, if you want something that's definitely reliable, use PETG or ABS like most people will recommend, but PLA is not impossible.
Just putting it out there as I haven't seen it done before but if you've ever seen vorticies coming off wing tips then maybe this type of airflow can be utilised to cool an overhang from underneath as well as from the top. I just don't know if the air speed would be enough to generate enough of the desired effect.
I'm still using an old Prusa MK2S and have been trying to figure out upgrading it to get a better fan duct. After watching this I may just try to design my own!
The medusa might be the best looking fan duckt ever
Thanks for giving us the cheat codes by providing the base model to start from! Starting my first learning session in 3D sketching now.
Anyone coming from Illustrator or similar vector graphics programs, will have no problems with this workflow :)
Splines are basically just the pen tool 👍
Looks awesome, looking forward to see more of this type of testing!
It might help to add a dead head extending slightly past your manifold to build better air pressure so all ducts flow best
Great video. Please do a best fan duct for the KE... I've done your KE custom mounting points. Loving it. Still going to do the y rails upgrade
I tried the first method you mentioned and got super frustrated. Thank you for this guide! If you have anything else cad related to share, please do so.
I'm with you on that; it took me at least an entire day to come up with the simplified version. I didn't find many good videos on the subject when I went looking. I have quite a bit of CAD experience, so I can certainly share what I know. If there is anything specific you'd like to see, please let me know.
I've found that when doing stuff like this its easier to do a short straight line before doing the spline. Its easier to do a mate with the small straight line to the existing geometry as well as then mate the spline to the small straight line.
What I dont like about all these designs is that the ducts are always directed at the tip of the nozzle. This isnt ideal because you do not actually want to cool the nozzle. I use a slightly modified version of the Mini Satsana and I have realized that I need to run way higher hot end temperatures, at least it feels like it.
Can you test if shielding the nozzle from the airstream has some advantages? I would expect that this could result in smaller need of high hot end temps and maybe more consistent extrusion.
But Medusa looks cool, not gonna lie.
the cooling when the filament is the hottest (i.e. the closest to the nozzle) is by far the most important though
@@tommihommi1 Yeah, but you are still cooling the nozzle which isnt meant to be cooled at all. That can sureley be mitigated by just upping the energy throughput into the nozzle (eg higher nozzle temps), but can have negative effects on consistency of the print, especially if fanspeeds change. I certaintly dont know how great the effect is but I think there is at least some energy to be preserved. I have to print at 225°C (PLA) with my Ender 3 at 60mm/s Outer Walls and 120mm/s+ Infill/Inner walls. I bet that if the nozzle wasnt affected by airflow as much, that the extruded volume per second can be higher or the nozzle temp can be lowered... but that is to be tested.
At the end of the day this is called "part cooling" and not nozzle cooling 🙂
@@heavyweight6440 Mike and I have been discussing all this with others and yes generally we think cooling the nozzle itself is a bad idea. Rather, you want to cool the filament just below the nozzles and also have some general cooling around the spot currently being printed. Adding some shielding is a good idea! The awesome thing is, with the upcoming challenge you'll be able to design and submit something.
Might I suggest putting these models through Autodesk CFD for flow analysis to determine if the manifold on the Medusa is evenly distributing airflow? (or any future designs, for that matter)
Manifolds can be tricky to balance distribution evenly. Flow simulations will help analyze and permit optimization of flow for even distribution. It can also help optimize the individual runner shapes to balance velocity across all outlets. This is much more accurate and faster to do in software prior to printing and testing the design.
I read somewhere that the maximum angle at which you should redirect airflow is around 11°, until the resistance increases over a point it's not really an efficient duct anyme. Im not sure how this applies to those organic surfaces, but I'd be afraid the medusa would require a lot of static pressure to work in any meaningful way, probably making it impossible to run on one or two 5015s. Really looking forward to more testing on that one.
Did i miss the episode where rectangular output is deemed better than oval or round?
Hasn't been deemed yet, though he did test some various designs.
Thank you, these information come in handy ;))
You're welcome, I'm glad you thought it was useful!
Amazing job!!! 😊
Thanks for that! I really appreciate the support my friend.
Impressive!! Cant wait for one that works good on X1C... the current cooling drive me insane.
This video has PERFECT timing! I just sat down to make a fan duct and got a notification for this! Keep it up
Woo design one for the challenge too!
@@802Garage 🤔
Worked on a fan duct for my Ender 3 a while ago, so this video would have been very helpful 😀
I had found a good video back then where it was explained how to simulate the airflow.
Have you tried simulating the airflow with SimScale ?
The Medusa! KEKW
2:01 not sure if you know about making slots in ur sketch (I didn't until recently, which is why I'm saying this), but it's very useful for those shapes
I also really like the idea of having each of the ducts touching each other so they can provide support along the way
Good call my friend, I do use the slots, but for some reason it didn't occur to me at that moment. I was undecided at the beginning whether a rectangle would be best and ended up with a slot. Your method would have been better to use for sure. Having the ducts tough just barely worked out great, it really did a good job of stiffening it up, and it was fairly easy to do, I more or less eyeballed it. It gives a nice welded look. I think the organic shapes are so cool looking, very unique. I'm super curious what people will come up with for the competition coming up.
Would it be beneficial to print the duct from resin? Massively reduce the inner layer lines for smoother ducts potentially increasing air flow 😊
not sure if you're set up to do it, but I'm curious if you see any testable benefit from vapor smoothing your cooling manifold? I'm also curious if vapor smoothing even works with ABS GF
I think that's an awesome idea. I don't have a setup to do this and I have no idea with the GF either, that's a video idea on its own I think. It occurred to me that resin smoothing the interior may work well, I'd need some method of measuing the output of each port.
Amazing work. It gives me a lot of ideas. Would it be worth testing if the output from each hole is equal? You may be able to split the channels for even distribution in the manifold.
Thanks! I was hoping that it would give other people some ideas too. I found this process to be super frustrating at first; after fine-tuning it a bit, it's super easy and I'm using it all of the time.
This tutorial amazing! Thanks for explaining this, this well.
Is there a fan duct you recommend for the Creality Sprite Extruder (Ender 3 S1 Pro) ?
Is there a link to the test coupon? Also: long, high-aspect ratio (i.e., "thin") ducts are going to be pretty lossy, so I'm surprised that having airflow from more directions is offsetting the inefficiency of such noodly ducts. Very interesting!
it is so beautiful i don't even care if it is making the job done 😂
Did you mention it? Which 3D modeling software did you use in this video? I might have to watch some of your previous videos to get caught up.
Fusion 360.
I have my design in mind for the challenge. Can’t wait.
Wooo!
To maximize the air flow, they need to have the same length and the same output from the fan, it´s like sport car mufflers. In your model, the short duct have more air flow than the others.
That's correct, this is why in the Medusa, I've created the manifold to allow the air to more easily flow into the longer ducts, and less-so into the shorter. It in this case worked out pretty nice for balancing, but not perfect of course. Too much air seems to be coming from the longer ducts in this case, so more adjustment is required.
MOAR DUCKS! 🦆
it'd be interesting to see a cfd simulation on the design
I wonder if rifling the inside of the tubes would help
Thanks for the tutorial! I dont actually need more cooling, but on a SV06+ the stock cooler is pretty poor in the sense that it blocks almost all visibility to the nozzle when printing, so I've wanted to mount it behind the extruder. So I might as well do this style of cooler
I have a magnetic mount for my cooler. Very handy when you are working on the hotend.
@@eslmatt811 That's a cool idea! In my case it's not really the access, but visibility. If I want to see if my first layer is coming out nice, or if the nozzle is clean, I have to look at it at a really awkward angle.
Great video!!!
Thank you very much!
Will this guy just make and sell his own printer? We would buy it 🎉
great vid as always, which program are you using for modeling?
Thank you! This is Fusion 360, I think it is still free for Personal use, I have to pay for mine sadly.
What if you make two (or more) ducts pointing at the nozzle from opposite sides, but make them shoot air in sequence (left right left right)? Would that make them not cancel eachother out?
Test a single tunnel with the air outlet 15-20mm wide and 7-10mm high. At most a single curve to change the fan blowing direction.
I've tested one very similar in the previous video, it had overall good cooling capability, however the results on one side vs the other were quite different and the overall ranking ended up around the middle of the pack, it had slightly better performance than the dual duct with opposing ducts, which was a bit surprising at first.
@@NeedItMakeIt thanks for the answer, good to know. I'll watch it. Nice content.
great video! really interesting
Thanks for that I really appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment!
I have seen these, I have not tried to make one tho partially bc my brand new a1 mini keeps breaking for some reason 😭
Need one for the Cteality Sprite for the Ender 3 S1 Pro.
What if you made the ducts more round in shape?
Can you do an update on the ender 3 V3 ke support carriage plate
Correct me if I'm wrong but don't the lengths of each duct need to be similar to avoid pressure imbalances? I assume most of the air will travel down the shortest tubes.
I don't think you're wrong, what I've done to mitigate this issue a bit is to have the most accessible path to the longest ducts using the manifold on the rear, and then to the next longest, and so on. I still have yet to learn SimScale, so I'll see what I can figure out to get it just right.
@@NeedItMakeIt it looks really cool and you're getting good results so theory and simulations could just take a back seat 😉
are each of the nozzles the same length from the point of source for the air, if not, does this affect the amount of airflow each nozzle delivers?
in the double example, they were going to be very close, in the Medusa, that's not the case, to get around this issue I created the manifold to more easily allow the air to flow into the longer ducts and less-so into the shorter ones. The result was fairly well balanced, of course I could also fine-tune it to do a bit better as well.
Why not Gorgon? The purpose of the application is to instantly turn to stone ;)
And now I get to figure out how to do this in Solidworks and OnShape... 😅
Nah, you're making the assumption that the air will be evenly distributed. Also, you just made a vortex *around* the plastic, you want as much air to hit the exact same spot. Whilst the medusa is a great idea, there's huge room for improvement!!
could you design one for the q1 pro
That's the plan, we'll do the X1, P1, Q1, K1... just realizing that these printers all have a 1 for some reason, strange. I want to have the challenge first and then we can adapt the duct to fit every popular printer out there.
question, probably a dumb one, but then i don't yet own a printer. Why? What is the point of this? Don't you want the nozzle to be hot?
The fans cool down the plastic allowing for more precise prints and better in air printing or angles preventing some supports.
No dumb questions 😊 So... the nozzle is heated because it has to melt the filament, but once the filament has been extruded we would like it to cool down/solidify as fast as possible. At least that's my understanding.
Another thing to consider is what material are you printing. PLA loves cooling, ABS will split and warp if you are not blowing hot air at it. Always research the material when trying something new.
I guess the outputs are directed towards the nozzle itself, not the melted filament. But that's just me.
That's a good point. When Prusa updated their mk2 to 2.5, the design put the blower directly on the hotend. without adding a silicone sock and a modded duct, i got thermal runaway errors. too much cooling on the nozzle is problematic
there is way to much pressure lose by splitting the airstream that early from all that wall drag. it looks cool but its a bad idea for performence
I used AutoCAD, Archicad and SketchUp (architect). What's the best FREE 3dCad for 3dprinting? I'm independent/private professional with no money to invest witout a good profit. I've been on this since the 90's.😮😢
freecad 0.22
Onshape. Its not sure it will always be free, but the entry level is much easier than freecad. Also, plan to spend some hours learning those software, since parametric modeling is quite different than non parametric software
Thanks for your inputs guys. Good luck to u2 from Portugal 🇵🇹
Yay first !
Cool to see how we can make these ourselves
At the end you mention any printer but the one you’re using has a really high pressure fan that can manage with such constructed ducts? These designs might choke out a normal fan on a printer
Also can you detail how you made the mounting points? Was is with more lofts or the automate tool?
True enough, I suppose that we need to delve into that a bit more. I think most printers have a type of blower fan these days, whether it's enough... we'd need to create them and test them on those printers to be sure. As we gain a better understanding of what makes a good duct I can see being able to adjust the design for each printer to have the same principles of cooling applied but with slight modifications to suit each printer fan setup. Good call on that!
The mounts were made using the loft command as well, the way I did this was to create a plane just low enough to completely cover the ducts, then I used the Spline again and created a "U" shape to somewhat follow the curve of the duct. I lofted the mount to the "U" shape and then I used Subtract to make sure that the mounts would meet the ducts perfectly. I did this before hollowing so I didn't end up with too many extra bodies.
@@NeedItMakeIt thanks for the details. I think the printer you’re using has a very powerful fan so I would definitely think it worthwhile to compare it to the 5015 blowers many printers have! Certainly axial fans will choke!
Thanks for the guide, I have always struggled with this. Also, since you have the X1, K1 and the Q1 Pro for long term, can you compare them and make video about it?
i feel like fusion 360 generative design could do that very well
Wouldn’t have strong cooling warp the part?
Some filaments more than others, yes. If we tried this on ABS, I think we may run into some problems, but it's worth a try. With super fast printing, we don't really have a choice, my only thought is that blowing slightly warm air is better than blowing cold air when it comes to warpage. It's certainly something we'd need to consider.
Puedes hacer uno para creality cr10se?
Hi, once we find the best version of duct design, we can adapt it to suit any popular 3D printer.
Neat!
Now make them equal length 😉
sorry what CAD software are you using?
Autodesk Fusion
@@TNX255thank u sir
It should still be free to use for personal use and most of the features are there in the free version too.
@@NeedItMakeIt It is free for non-commercial use. I transitioned from a full student license to the free one and as far as I can tell, about 90% of the features are still available to me, only some advanced stuff like exporting to some exotic file formats and creating printable drawings with the design tools aren't.
im new to 3d printing. is there a print anywhere for P1S nozzle attachment? or this is kinda encouraging you to make your own. your videos are great thanks
Without cfd you are still just guessing, you can make an awesome smooth path, but the "y" split is probably not optimal
Guessing and checking can still get fantastic results. If his coolers are already producing better results than stock, what was the stock CFD worth?
this is absolutely invaluable, if only fusion 360 was worth it.
Can use it for free!
I checked recently and you should be able to get the free version for personal use. www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/personal
honestly, in my experience, the friction losses from these long paths almost always outweigh any potential benefit from redirecting the air in so controlled a fashion
It would be interesting to see you test a duct that is just as short as possible, and directs your air at the print from one direction. I bet you'll get the best results out of everything just by doing that
at least, that was my experience!
I have a duct like that and it sucks. Since its most of the time coming from the wrong direction.
Maybe so! I think with the CPAP style of fan, which is more of a compressor, it may not act in the same way as a traditional 3D printer fan. I'd have to find a way to measure the difference. I suppose maybe having a short duct and having a very long one, the mouth of the duct is identical on both and sending the air in exactly the same direction as well.
Do you think that smoothing the interior would help, or coating it with a hydrophobic material?
I think the air placement is very important, I'll be showing this better in the next video, we're going to actually see the air...well that's the plan anyway. Hopefully it can help to understand cooling a bit better.