E3D Duct - 40mm w/ Stator Vanes
Description
I designed this duct to fit a 40mm fan on the e3d hotend heatsink (fits V5 and V6, bowden or non). I had used a similar design for several years, but it had some quirks that were annoying to deal with. I also learned some interesting things about duct design from a recent CNC control box project I did. I wanted to incorporate some of those ideas, and other quality of life improvements to my printer. Since I was already in drawing myself an X-carriage upgrade, I decided to have a crack at making a cool duct to go with it (no pun intended ;P ). I designed with a 40* upward tilt on the fan to reduce unwanted part cooling. I added flanges to the top and bottom of the heatsink clip end to keep it locked in place and prevent air leakage. The bottom flange is reduced in size to work with silicone socks. Last but not least, I added some stator vanes for the fan. The stator recovers wasted rotational energy added to the flow by a fan, and converts it into useful pressure that will push more air through your E3d heatsink. Besides improving pressure characteristics, a stator effectively allows us to use a more compact duct without suffering performance issues related to rotational flow inside of a duct. Printing... it's designed for easy printing. No supports are required, and your usual print settings should work fine. Assembly is self explanatory. The holes are sized for M3 bolts, and the duct snaps on to the E3d heatsink. The fit is intentionally snug to prevent movement while printing fast. Take care that the flanges on the top and bottom of the heatsink are positioned properly; they should not be covered by heatsink fins. [edit: Version 2: I added a version 2 with cylindrical hub. The original spherical hub was not ideal. Version 2 has a more constant cross sectional area through the vanes, which theoretically should improve overall effectiveness. Version 3: I had second thoughts on the cylindrical hub since with the tilted fan it actually pinched off the area too much on the lower part of the stator. I also decided to make the vanes more closely match the stators that are found on higher end fans (Delta high pressure models). In addition to these 2 changes, version 3 also uses thinner 0.5mm vanes. These should still be printable with normal printers, while staying quieter and more efficient. ] Note: There are always tradeoffs in real world engineering. In the case of fan stators, they will give you more pressure from your fan, but with that will no doubt come more noise from added turbulence. I did not develop this stator from CFD, nor did I test in a lab with a wind tunnel etc. So the geometry is far from optimized for any given fan. However I did use my ae knowledge to get the vane geometry pretty close to what optimal would be for the average 40mm fan. Things like making the vanes thinner, adding airfoil cross sections, sweeping the blades, playing with alpha and twist, all can be tailored to match a given fan. Instead what I tried brewing up here is something more generally applicable... a higher performing e3d duct that pretty much any printer can print well, and will improve performance of whatever fans that may end up being used with it.
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