If sound is not an issue, is there an "ideal" max chamber fan setting?
As my printer is in the basement, I don't mind cranking up the fans if necessary. I set my chamber fan to 80% thinking the higher the better, since it is used to control the temperature. However, when printing PLA, I've been noticing some pretty heavy warping at the corners on some prints. I was wondering if it could actually be a *good* thing to keep the chamber fans somewhat lower. I'm not sure if this is actually true but my logic is that higher chamber fans will keep things cooler, which might actually increase the chance of warping.
Has anyone else been tinkering with their chamber fan settings? Should I just leave it at 40%?
RE: If sound is not an issue, is there an "ideal" max chamber fan setting?
Difficult to give a clear answer. Different geometries require different temperatures, so it's always a compromise, if you have objects with mixed situations.
In general, warping becomes less with less airflow and at higher ambient temperature.
On the other hand, you might run into "heatcreep" extrusion issues, if the chamber becomes too hot and the heatbreak doesn't get cool enough air.
For me, the chamber shouldn't go above 30°C for standard PLA. The heatbreak will be rise to about 42°C.
For the first layer, the backpressure at the tip of the nozzle will be higher. For my "perfect carbon look" with the 0.25 nozzle, extrusion issues start at around 36°C heatbreak temperature.
Another very important thing: Overhangs!
The quicker the print fan cools down the extruded filament, the less the overhangs will sag.
So for critical overhangs, it would be best to have the chamber as cold as possible.
And then there's the last important thing: Warping from the air pressure of the print fan.
There's an interesting video about someone hanging his printer upside down and brides still warp "down the object", so in this case, upwards!
That's simply due to the print fan blowing the extruded filament away.
You can also run into issues, when printing thin walls.
In theory, you could tune the print fan settings close to perfection, but then you'll have the issue of walls looking differently throughout the object, due to quicker/slower cooling.