The hotend cooling fans never turn off while the machine is on

[meelo88]

I have a question regarding the hotend cooling fans. I have the power saving option enabled and my part cooling fans and rear filter fan do turn off when the timeout has elapsed but I noticed that the hotend fans never turn off while the machine is on.

Is this by design or is there a setting that needs to be adjusted when the hot ends are cool enough they should be disabled? I realize that it does not take up a lot of energy but I don't see why they need to be always on if the whole printer is on standby.

Please let me know if this is just my machine or if everyone else's does the same.

Thank you!

[Blue21]

Sounds you are lucky, on mine, the rear fan never turn off whatever setting I make. I expect the extruder fans remain on for safety reason.

[Blue21]

By the way, what setting did you make for these timeouts ?
There is one on page 2 of advanced settings for the "Power saving mode". I tried it with 20 minutes.
On page 3, there is "Close the filter fan and side fans when printer is idle". I tried it with 10 minutes.
Maybe it is the opposite that work better ?

[Blue21]

Made a try with "Power saving mode" = 5 minutes and "Close the filter fan and side fans when printer is idle" = 10 minutes. But it remains the same as the opposite time, this time the display turned off after 5 minutes but not the filter fan.

[meelo88]

I have mine set at 5 minutes

[Blue21]

I have mine set at 5 minutes

Sorry but the fans or the "power saving" ? and what about the other setting ?

[meelo88]

I'm sorry, I was mistaken:

Power Saving Mode ---
Enable Power Saving Mode: ON
Power Saving Mode Timeout: 60min

Close filter fan and side fans when printer is idle ---
Disable Fans: ON
Disable Fans Timer: 5min

Let me lower my Power saving to 5 minutes and see what happens....

[Vicky@Raise3D]

We are going to release a new version firmware this week with some bug fixed. Please update your firmware and advise whether the issue is still there or not.

[meelo88]

We are going to release a new version firmware this week with some bug fixed. Please update your firmware and advise whether the issue is still there or not.

I understand my thread was changed to talk about the rear and side fans but the original topic was whether the hot end fans turn off at all? Can you please let me know if they were intended to in the design? Thank you!

[Bikeracer]

I had this reply from my supplier after they contacted Raise3D......

Quote.....
- The front fans for the hot ends will always be on as they are not controlled by the touchscreen or software. They are continuously provided 12V. However, the side model cooling fans can be turned off.

hope this helps

[meelo88]

I had this reply from my supplier after they contacted Raise3D......

Quote.....
- The front fans for the hot ends will always be on as they are not controlled by the touchscreen or software. They are continuously provided 12V. However, the side model cooling fans can be turned off.

hope this helps

That helps! Thank you!

I just figured the goal would be to shut them off when everything is cool to reduce wear.

[Aero3D]

How can an open-source £700 printer have full control of all the fans, including the extruder fan, so the machine is 100% silent when idle, but a £3500 printer cannot

[Bikeracer]

How can an open-source £700 printer have full control of all the fans, including the extruder fan, so the machine is 100% silent when idle, but a £3500 printer cannot

Perhaps the software developers are not fully developed themselves.

[Blue21]

How can an open-source £700 printer have full control of all the fans, including the extruder fan, so the machine is 100% silent when idle, but a £3500 printer cannot

It is probably a design choice for safety. If you switch on/off often such fan, a day or another it will not start and that will potentially kill the extruder. For the other fan and especially the loud rear one, I am totally with you, no reason not to switch it off in idle state.

[Aero3D]

How can an open-source £700 printer have full control of all the fans, including the extruder fan, so the machine is 100% silent when idle, but a £3500 printer cannot

It is probably a design choice for safety. If you switch on/off often such fan, a day or another it will not start and that will potentially kill the extruder. For the other fan and especially the loud rear one, I am totally with you, no reason not to switch it off in idle state.

Quality fans will not fail in that way. They could always add a feature that blips the fan at full power at start up to kick it into life. I have 6 Prusa machines (had more) and never once has an extruder fan failed to start. And if it did the board would recognise that and throw an error and prevent extruder heat up. And these features were there on the original 8bit Rambo boards.

I think it is more a cost-cutting exercise not to build such features on the board

[Blue21]

Quality fans will not fail in that way. They could always add a feature that blips the fan at full power at start up to kick it into life. I have 6 Prusa machines (had more) and never once has an extruder fan failed to start. And if it did the board would recognise that and throw an error and prevent extruder heat up. And these features were there on the original 8bit Rambo boards.

I think it is more a cost-cutting exercise not to build such features on the board

Maybe, always hard to say from customer side. If you see my signature, I ordered a Prusa mini as backup , 8 weeks delay but ok.

[Vicky@Raise3D]

We are going to release a new version firmware this week with some bug fixed. Please update your firmware and advise whether the issue is still there or not.

I understand my thread was changed to talk about the rear and side fans but the original topic was whether the hot end fans turn off at all? Can you please let me know if they were intended to in the design? Thank you!

Unfortunately, the hotend cooling fan is always being supplied a constant 12V and will remain on until the machine is powered off.