Extern ventilator
I have a problem with printing PLA with closed doors. i want to use the "hole" on the backpart panel for instaling a external ventilator to reduce the temperature inside the enclosure. is there an instruction available with some news about which ventilator, dimension, brand, ......? is there an available topic??? cant find here
RE: Extern ventilator
I do not think Prusa has ever specified the reason for that cutout. Speculation is that a fan or heater accessory may eventually be available, but I have not seen anything yet.
I mounted a 120mm PWM fan there. The hole spacing is correct, but the holes are for 3mm bolts -- which is smaller than the hardware supplied for mounting most fans. I designed some Ninjaflex parts to allow using 3mm bolts and dampen the vibration a bit. You can find those here: https://www.printables.com/model/491661-fan-mount-for-3mm-bolt
I connected the fan to the same Raspberry Pi that runs Octoprint. The Pi also has a temperature sensor in the enclosure, and a relay connected to the Pi GPIO for controlling the 12V supply to the fan. I wrote a shell script that accepts a "target temperature", switches ON the relay when the target is reached, and sends a PWM signal (via the Pi's hardware PWM on another GPIO) to the fan's pwm input. At threshold, the PWM is set to 25%, but is then gradually increased if the temperature continues to rise above the threshold.
A simpler solution would be a standalone PWM controller, and just manually set the fan speed as needed. I already had the Pi and also wanted to have different temperatures for different materials, so went the more complicated route.
RE: Extern ventilator
I bought a temperature controller and fairly large fan from AC Infinity. Together they expel warm air from the enclosure on my Mk3S+ to maintain the air inside the enclosure at a set temperature. If you are interested I can find the relevant info and post links to the two components.
If necessary, I'm planning on cutting a new hole (or expanding the existing one) in the enclosure for my Mk4 when it arrives with the bundled enclosure.
RE:
I can also vouch for the AC Infinity solution that @MikeH mentions. My old home-made enclosure (for a Lulzbot) used a 6" AC Infinity fan and plate, along with their intelligent control panel and temperature sensor. Just set the target temperature, and its fully automatic. The unit in my Lulzbot enclosure is an older version of this one: AC Infinity Fanplate T3
The only downside is that I don't think the fanplate hole spacing is standard, so it probably would not fit the Prusa Enclosure cutout without some additional surgery. (I can take some measurements if you want.)
I also wanted the ability to control the fan via embedded GCodes, which I can do via Octoprint with the fan connected to the Pi. Otherwise, I would have gone with another AC Infinity setup on the new enclosure -- because it worked great as a "standalone" solution for the old enclosure.
RE: Extern ventilator
thank you - i will check it for availibility in germany. because on amazon it cost about 150€ thats to expensive. maybe i can buy it from amazon usa
RE: Extern ventilator
cheapest way is 82€ with amazon.us 🙁 hmm more expensive i thought..
RE: Extern ventilator
AC Infinity does sell internationally but adds customs fees and their manuals are only available in English, but are dowloadable from their web site.
https://acinfinity.com/pages/support/international-orders.html
thank you - i will check it for availibility in germany. because on amazon it cost about 150€ thats to expensive. maybe i can buy it from amazon usa