Bowden Fans

Hi everyone

My Ender 3 V2 is about 2 weeks old.

When I turn it on and it’s cold one of the fans in the Bowden is really noisy like a bad Bering. It last for about 15 seconds and then it’s quiet.

My question is does anyone know is the fans have changed between Ender 3 and Ender 3 V2. All I can find on Amazon are fans for the Ender 3

Ender 3 and Ender 3 V2 are the same fans they are 40 x 40 x 10 mm fans 24v. You can contact the company you bought it from but when mine went out (Ender 3 V2) they were going to send me the same fan and it was going to take 3 weeks to get it to me. I said thanks but no thanks and bought them from amazon and replaced it myself. Much better fan and was cheap 3 for $10 dollars US. This is a command problem with the V2’s. By the way its the hot end fan and not the part fan that conmanly goes out. Cheap bearings I’ve heard.

Since it does run quiet after 15 seconds, you could consider lubricating the fan. This is done by carefully peeling back the sticker on 1 side of the fan’s hub and adding 1 to 2 drops of oil. I recommend sewing machine oil. Then, carefully place the sticker back over the hub. If you get oil on the sticker & it will no longer stick, replace it with aluminum furnace duct tape.

Lubricating the fan will save you the trouble of having to rewire the main fan. If it works, great, but it may not. If the fan still fails, you will have to do as @Larry did. Be aware, you will need to find a fan that has a very long wire, and the right connector on the control board end, unless you are handy with electronics & prepared to run wire and solder or crimp as required.

@Ender5r I tried lubricating the fan am a computer tech and it worked for about 2 weeks then i started getting thermal runaway shutdowns and found the fan had frozen up. That’s why i had to replace it. And like you say i had to cut the wires going to the fan and solder the new wires for the new fan. Figured that was easier then running new wires all the way to the controller board.

I agree, soldering at the hotend is the easiest: a little solder, a couple of short pieced of heat shrink and, Voilà! 'Course, crimping on a connector would make the whole thing more future proof, but is more of a PITA, and you have to find a way of keeping the connector out of the way. Still, given how easy it is to do, I would try lubricating first. If it doesn’t work, you’re no worse off.

Very true. But from what all i’ve heard about the problem only seems to work for a short period of time before it quits all together. And my experience with the problem seems to support that. I guess i like to head off small potential problems before it becomes a big problem. The thermal shutdowns caused a major clog in the hot end that damaged the bowden tube so i had to replace it. Ended up replacing it with a capricorn PTFE bowden tube and better pneumatic fittings to hold it in place better.

Thanks for all the info.
I am handy with the solder iron and shrink tub.
Think ill try the oil and order the new fans also

Now that sounds like a right perfect plan; one worthy of the Boy Scouts ?

My Ender 3 v2 is 2 weeks old today and started doing the exact same thing after about a week–it’s one of the fans in the hotend module.

I guess I better get ready to replace it. wmyhal, if it’s not too late take a photo showing me which fan it is. I’ll try oiling it for now.

Hi Mochalatte

I’m not even sure what fan is bad. Ill have to remove the cover and see. On Amazon the 2 fans come in one order so Ill just order both

You should be able to tell by looking closely at the fans while a print is going on. Normally, 1 fan should be on & the other off, at least at the beginning of the print.

@wmyhal, those 2 fans: they’re not OEM fans are they?

You can tell when you first turn on the printer. The hot end fan (the one in front) will come on as soon as you turn on the printer. The part fan (the one on the side) will only come on when the controller board turns it on while your printing. Mine started making noise as soon as i turned it on so knew it has the hot end fan in front. From my research that seems to be the one that is most often the problem.

That makes sense @Larry. Since it runs so much less than the front fan, it should last quite a bit longer.

Yes it is the font facing fan. I was able to confirm than.

If you are ordering new fans, it would seem best to order 2 of the same type, as the part cooling fan is almost sure to fail later on. It is still puzzle as to why Creality uses such crappy fans on this printer. The ones on my Ender 5 are working fine.

Hey Larry, is it 12V or 24V? I looked at the Amazon link you posted earlier and that is 12V: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0…0?ie=UTF8&th=1

Thanks

@mochalatte, yeah, you do have to be careful about the voltage.

So actually, it looks like the Ender 3 V2 uses two different kinds of fans in the hotend: Ender 3v2 4010 blower(cooling)fan assembly 3D animation - YouTube

Looks like the nozzle cooling fan is a normal one that blows out of the face, but the fan that cools the extruded filament a turbo blower style, right?

And as far as the voltage goes, both are 24 V based on what I am seeing. Looks like Noctua fans are all the rage for their quietness, but I would have to install buck converters since they only go up to 12 V.

Man, I see how 3D printing becomes a hack-fest. I need a new hotend cover that accommodates a Noctua 40x40x10 12V fan for the nozzle and has a slot for the buck converter, and then a Noctua 40x40x20 12V again with a slot for another buck converter with the ducting needed to get the airflow down to the filament extrusion since it would be a normal fan rather than a turbo blower. Oh, and don’t forget the mount for the BL-Touch. Anyone want to design me a new hotend cover that accommodates all that? ?

From that video it seems to me that the nozzle fan is, like you say, a normal one. The other one looks like a squirrel cage fan to me. They seem to me to be exactly the same type of fans as I have on my Ender 5. I wonder if the spec (i.e. brand) of fans for my Ender 5 is different from those on the Ender 3 V2. I do suspect the Ender 5 fans would fit onto the 3 V2. It would seem silly for Creality to use a different spec for the 2 printers, but who knows?

You can get around having to hack 3D printers by spending more: e.g. buy an Ultimaker. ?

This 2 fan kit (Amazon.com) will probably work for my Ender 3 V2, don’t you think? Looks like it works on the 3, 3 Pro, as well as the 5. Do you like my odds with that kit? I’ll worry about the Noctua upgrade later.