Fan Noise

[warrenmiller 0]

when I start up my fairly new Ultimaker a lot of the time the fan underneath goes crazy, like really loud.

do I need to replace the fan?

here's a video: https://www.dropbox.com/s/40sqpcjwg5g4to4/Video%2005-06-2013%2010%2044%2024.mov

thanks!

warren

 

[IRobertI 520]

Ugh, that sounds pretty annoying hehe. What you could try before asking for a replacement is to peel back the sticker on the fan and put a small drop of oil in there and see if the noise goes away. It helped on my fan which was slightly noisy and I know that it has helped others as well. Unfortunately the quality of that fan is pretty crappy.

 

[gr5 2,177]

This is a very common complaint. My UM is 7 months old and nice and quiet but occasionally the fan is noisy and I knock the UM and it goes quiet or I just wait 30 seconds and it fades away. But I'm one of the lucky ones.

That sounded like it was hitting something so I would take it apart first and power it up while not attached to the board (not for long though! don't want to overheat anything) and see if maybe the fan is hitting the fan duct?

But lots of people say oiling it helps. Plus many people found alternate parts that are higher quality and the exact same size. So if oil doesn't help google "ultimaker fan replacement" or something similar.

 

[thingster 0]

The radial fan on the bottom side of the Ultimaker was always a problem. I don't know why Ultimaking is still using it on the stock model. Maybe because of cost reasons. It's a cheap and weak fan that isn't worth to bear with its noises. I strongly recommend to replace it and many UM users do that as their first modification to their machine. You can replace it with a better radial fan or just use some standard PC fans or even industrial-rated axial-flow fans. You can print a bracket for mounting axial fans, e. g. this one.

[warrenmiller 0]

thanks everyone - will try the oil first.

 

[eagreen 0]

better grease it with teflon grease, if you use oil you have to redo it almost every week

 

[jonnybischof 60]

The stock fans are really low quality...

Both my fans have the typical "bad ball bearing" noise that comes from the balls spinning freely inside the bearing and crashing into each other whenever you move the fan (typical for hotend fan).

Ultimaking should really consider including better fans. The small increase in cost (of course the price will need to be adjusted) is definitely worth it. The radial fan design is actually very good (most high-end graphics cards use designs like this), just the fan itself is low-quality...

Axial fans can't work well if they don't have sufficient space where they "suck" in air. This is the case with the UM as the fans are very close to the ground the UM stands on. Radial fans are designed to suck in air from a confined space (like in-between two stacked graphics cards).

I'll go searching for a good, suitable radial fan when I have time.

 

[znib 2]

The stock fans are really low quality...

Both my fans have the typical "bad ball bearing" noise that comes from the balls spinning freely inside the bearing and crashing into each other whenever you move the fan (typical for hotend fan).

 

I wish there were ball bearings in the fans... But the stock fans are so cheap, there are no ball bearings in them, I think that's the reason for all the noisy fans. Mine have the same problem. The fan on the hotend only does it every now an then, the fan in the bottom did it always, until I took it apart and greased it up. Then it stopped, but just yesterday, it did it again...

Even worse than the noise is, that they turn MUCH slower while the make this noise, so this could easily lead to overheating something... And just because Ultimaker uses the cheapest fans they could find. :mad:

 

[jonnybischof 60]

Actually, they are ball bearing fans (the balls are making the noise), they're just cheap ball bearings...

When I started the printer this morning, the electronics fan greeted me with a very annoying roaring. After a few minutes, it returned to normal, but I consider this fan "broken".

So now, after only about 30 hours of printing, both stock fans are in need of replacement. This is no problem for me, but I'd be much better (and it would cost less) if the stock fans were upgraded for quality parts.

Didn't have time to look for a radial fan replacement yet. Maybe I'll just strip an old graphics card, there should be one laying around somewhere...

 

[znib 2]

Actually, they are ball bearing fans (the balls are making the noise), they're just cheap ball bearings...

When I started the printer this morning, the electronics fan greeted me with a very annoying roaring. After a few minutes, it returned to normal, but I consider this fan "broken".

So now, after only about 30 hours of printing, both stock fans are in need of replacement. This is no problem for me, but I'd be much better (and it would cost less) if the stock fans were upgraded for quality parts.

Didn't have time to look for a radial fan replacement yet. Maybe I'll just strip an old graphics card, there should be one laying around somewhere...

 

Did you take yours appart, or are you just guessing there are ball bearings in them? You should take them appart, you'd be suprised what you'll find. :grin:

Ok, I don't know about the hot end fan, but I took my electronics fan appart to grease it up, and there is no ball bearing in there.

30 hours is much more than I got, my electornics fan started doing this noise at the second print, so I consider it broken since the beginning....

Do you know where to get replacement fans? Unfortunately, I don't have an old graphics card laying around, and I even if I had, I doub't that all those fans are the same size/voltage.....

 

[SandervG 1,521]

Hi Jonny and Znib,

If you are experiencing difficulties with your fans in the early stages of your Ultimaker please contact us and we can sent you a replacement. That is no trouble for us.

I will take your notes about the defects to our inbound operator, so maybe he can look for alternatives.

Thank you for sharing, and have a great day!

 

[jonnybischof 60]

Hi Sander

I'd rather replace the fans with actual quality components than the same ones that may work well for some time, but probably not for long. But that's not a problem for me, I'm used to this with computer cooling fans...

 

...

I will take your notes about the defects to our inbound operator, so maybe he can look for alternatives.

...

 

Thanks! I hope something comes out of this. I'm sure you get a very good price for the stock fans, but imho that's not worth the trouble many users will have with the fans.

Maybe make a poll and ask the others if they'd be willing to pay more for the kit and get industrial grade fans?

-----------

 

Did you take yours appart, or are you just guessing there are ball bearings in them? You should take them appart, you'd be suprised what you'll find. :grin:

Ok, I don't know about the hot end fan, but I took my electronics fan appart to grease it up, and there is no ball bearing in there.

...

 

I didn't take this one (hot-end) apart, but it's the same noise like another fan made. That one, I actually took apart. It's quite easy to recognise because you hear the difference when you move the fan (and the hot-end does move all the time). Whenever the hot-end changes it's direction, the balls that were spinning in circles round the bearing will break up their circle and bounce around for a short time. Then they start circling again.

The electronics fan is different, I don't know about that one's bearing. I'll take a look at it when I have a replacement

 

[znib 2]

Hi Jonny and Znib,

If you are experiencing difficulties with your fans in the early stages of your Ultimaker please contact us and we can sent you a replacement. That is no trouble for us.

I will take your notes about the defects to our inbound operator, so maybe he can look for alternatives.

Thank you for sharing, and have a great day!

 

Hi SandervG,

Thanks for your quick response and offer to help, in fact I have just filed a support ticket. I'll send you the ticket number in a personal message.

I would appreciate replacement fans, but I have the same concerns as JonnyBischof, if the replacement fans are the same kind as the original fans, I'm afraid they won't last much longer, because many people have the same problem. There is even a thread somewhere in this forum about how to take the electronics fan appart to put some grease in it.

Or are most of the fans working fine and there are just a bunch who have this problems? It's hard to tell, because of course in the forums you only read about the bad fans, and can't compare how many good ones there are. :smile:

 

[gr5 2,177]

One data point: my electronics fan has been fine. Occasionally it makes the really loud noise on power up but either fixes itself within 10 seconds or I just hit the UM enough for it to slide a few inches on the table and the noise always goes away. I haven't done the "remove sticker and add oil" thing to this fan but have done that to fans in computers in the past so I'm not afraid to try it.

The fan on the print head has been excellent. Perfect. Quiet. I haven't heard as many complaints about that one.