I have a Flashforge Dreamer that I use with S3D as a slicer. The machine has an extra fan to the left of the left extruder for printing with PLA and two large fans at the back of the enclosure.
By default with S3D the ‘PLA fan’ turns on on second layer and the back enclosure fans soon after that. However today when I sent the print I noticed that none of the turned on. The only fan that it is printing with is the fan cooling the head transition zone. I suspect this happened cos I forgot to switch from Makerbot to Reprap in Tools> Firmware Configuration…
My question to you: Do I really need those fans? My print is now 7 hours into the job and the print looks perfectly well… (printing PLA 215C, 55C bed, 60ms, 0.2mm layer)
The cooling fan on the head is preferred when printing PLA. The large fans on the back are controlled by a temperature sensor located in the front top right corner of the machine and turn on when the temperature inside gets high to prevent overheating of the printing head and the print itself (they also run whenever the head fan is on as far as I remember). If you print in a warm room at high temperature for a long time and the printer is fully closed then you definitely want those on.
I have removed mine to reduce the noise and I open the top cover slightly instead. Occasionally I open the front door slightly to prevent overheating. Never had any problems, but my room is air conditioned - never above 25 deg Celsius.
If you use dual extrusion everything will get quite hot so either use those fans or open the printer cover/door (or both).
The first batch of Dreamers did not come with those cooling fans installed and there were cases of melted head carriages when using dual extrusion, so proceed with caution.
I have a Flashforge Creator Pro X, and I found out that it is indeed better to have active cooling when using PLA material. In fact I even open the lid of my machine and take top cover off, put fan in front of it and turn my Aircon on to have maximum cooling effect. It takes care of those nasty stringing side effects. Hope this helps, good luck on your prints.
Hi Wiktor, The fans that cools the extruded to plastic has sime advantages that make it worth to use it: The fan will help to get cleaner overhangs and bridges, also it will give you cleaner travel movements (lesser strings). Depending on your model you want to go full power with the fan, to get the listed advantages, but for example for the first layer, it isn’t usefully, as no bridges or overhangs are printed and the layer will have better adhesion to the bed, if you leave the fan at 0% for the first layer. Also no extra cooling will give better layer bonding and the outside lines of your 3d print will melt together easier, which creates a more even surface. I’d say its definitely worth it to have the fan working if needed. Cheers, Marius Breuer
When I am printing in PLA I usually use built in fans of the printer, and open all the lids, and face an electric fan in front of my printer. I found this method useful in eliminating those whiskers that I usually get when printing with PLA. As a friend of mine suggested, PLA likes it cool and ABS likes it hot.
