Water cooling on the Smart Effector.
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I've finally completed transitioning my second printer to a water cooled hotend setup. I admit that's a bit of an overkill, but I really appreciated the performance of this beauty (https://youprintin3d.de/hotendszubehoer/e3d/wasserkuehlung/792/water-cooled-heatsink.html) on my other machine. Luckily for me, the guy behind it has published .step files, so it wasn't hard to modify it for the Smart Effector even with my level of Fusion 360 skills.
Here's what I got (the water cooled one already has the RC cooling jacket on, didn't thing about taking a picture before I put that on):
I got the thread size a bit wrong (I think the original heatsink has moved to 1mm pitch instead of 1.5mm in beta), but other than that it's a drop-in replacement. So there was no need to change my print cooling setup or the config. Oh and the CNC company couldn't do the lip E3D now does for the push-fit connector, so I had to push in an E3D brass fitting instead.
So far I'm pretty happy with the results - the hotend fan was by far the loudest thing on my delta, my retractions are down and I can reliably use soluble filaments in my switching extruder setup. On the minus side water cooling is definitely another hassle, but I haven't had any leaks with my other machine with a similar arrangement for more than a year.
I'll gladly share the source files if anyone's interested. I did use openly shared models to create this anyway.
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This looks great. Lots of questions!
- Do you have any pics of your switching extruder setup? Really curious about that one.
- What is the material for the core of the extruder?
- What do you use for a pump?
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Sure - here you go, in the process of printing a dual color trinket. You can see bits of the radiator and tubing in the back.
I've got 2 Bondtech BMGs in a flying extruder configuration (probably a bit of an overkill, it also worked when they were normally mounted), a small Y-splitter and a Distech Automation heatbreak. The last part is actually the important one - it's really hard to pull off a 20-30 hr print with the stock E3D heatbreak, it inevitably gets stuck after a hundred changes or so.
As for the core - do you mean the heatsink? It's aluminium, the rest are standard E3D V6 parts (apart from the heatbreak). The pump is probably a candidate for replacement - it's now the noisiest part in the system. It's a cheapo Chinesium SysCooling SC 300T pump-reservoir combo. Pretty much any pump/radiator combo would do though - you need to dissipate maximum 10 Watts of heat, in normal operation much less than that. Even the cheapest PC cooling pump would be enough.
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here is my version
jacket https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3542037
radiator i got from here and used lathe to remove internal ribs.than i used epoxy to build up mounting side (wall) on the radiator.
plus aquarium pump with 300 l/h with 4mm piping. this pump is silent and can rise water up to 70 cm
when printing at high temperature (280 degrees) i realizes that water becomes too hot... that leaded to 6 pipe radiator.
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@c310 Hm, why not get a PC radiator to cool it instead? They're really cheap and a huge overkill cooling-wise, even with the smallest one. I'm rocking something like https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Hot-Aluminum-Computer-Radiator-Water-Cooling-Cooler-For-Computer-Chip-CPU-GPU-VGA-RAM-Heatsink-Heat/32975364663.html with a silent 80mm fan.
Stays cool regardless of the temperature, could also easily handle additional 15 Watts or so if I decided to water cool my steppers with the same loop.
Yeah, I tried to file down a normal heatsink and epoxy an RC jacket on it before. Turns out I'm really not good with a file and epoxy. As a bonus, my current approach allows the whole thing to be potentially disassembled for cleaning some time later on in the future.
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@mike said in Water cooling on the Smart Effector.:
why not get a PC radiator to cool it instead?
i did not have one, but did have tubes. it took me less than hour to design, print and assemble the stuff...all epoxy glues are different - there is a need to consult datasheet for material compatibility. I also thought on disassembling issue and decided that there is no reason to open it.
cheapest DIY water cooling is shown here
clean and simple. very elegant solution. -
@c310 said in Water cooling on the Smart Effector.:
@mike said in Water cooling on the Smart Effector.:
why not get a PC radiator to cool it instead?
i did not have one, but did have tubes. it took me less than hour to design, print and assemble the stuff...all epoxy glues are different - there is a need to consult datasheet for material compatibility. I also thought on disassembling issue and decided that there is no reason to open it.
cheapest DIY water cooling is shown here
clean and simple. very elegant solution.That is a neat idea but wouldn't you want/need that cooling block to not be touching the actual heater block below it? Just use a normal heatbreak between them I would think.
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@jamesm said in Water cooling on the Smart Effector.:
cooling block to not be touching the actual heater block
well, that picture i have got in comments to my design on thingiverse... i like the idea for simplicity, and it seems to work, however i would consider following changes
- half the cooling block in height
- add 2nd pipe in the same block but on the other side
this will add air gap between both blocks but will require custom long neck... AND this mod will be difficult to use with smarteffector...
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I'm using such simple water cooling block for several months, and it works great. I don't have any radiator, and even printing ABS don't heat-up the water too much. For higher temperatures, though (Nylon), it might be necessary.
See https://www.logre.eu/wiki/Tête_à_FNU#Version_water-cooled
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@Mike Does the offer of sharing the modified step files still stand?
I am quite interested in getting one fabricated myself. -
I run this one on my printer. It is not a delta but it is fractionally shorter than a standard e3d heatsink
https://youprintin3d.de/hotendszubehoer/e3d/wasserkuehlung/792/water-cooled-heatsink.html
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@Nxt-1 Oops, haven't visited i the forum in quite a while... Sure does though, here's a link https://www.dropbox.com/s/1xaf4sxdj74tjb7/Waco_V6_modded v2.step?dl=0.
Got to credit the guy who makes the hotend from the link in the reply above - I'm actually using that particular one on my second printer. I ordered mine from Weerg.com, if you choose the same one I could give you the order number so they might possibly give you the "doing again" rate. Wherever you decide to make those, make sure to get them anodized. My anodized one from youprintin3d.de doesn't have any gunk in it whatsoever and my polished alimunium one needed some gentle scrubbing after a year of use.
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@Mike Thanks for the reply. I will be going with the youprintin3d.de version, as it should be arriving tomorrow
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@Mike what size is the RC water jacket? because I have bought one but is 1mm to small to accomodate the E3D radiator.
is your E3D aluminium radiator custom made ?
thx!
