Author Topic: 3d printable cooling fan  (Read 1689 times)

Offline awake

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3d printable cooling fan
« on: February 05, 2021, 06:40:45 PM »
Attached are files to generate a fan that can be 3d printed without supports. As designed, the fan has a hub that extends further than the blades, with a groove in it; the idea is that the fan will be mounted on a shaft using flanged bearings, with an o-ring or similar belt to drive it (see attachment 1).

This was originally modeled in FreeCAD, but I also created an OpenSCAD version. Both of these are attached; both allow you to change parameters as desired for the hub OD, ID, overall fan blade OD, number of fan blades, etc. - fully configurable.

I have never used .step files or .iges files, so not sure exactly how they will come through - my little bit of experimenting makes it look like it may not be in a form that allows adjustment of the parameters - ? If that is the case, here is the quick version of how I produced the blades (I'm assuming the hub will be no problem to reproduce): I generated a sketch of the "root" of the blade - a parallelogram located at the origin, angled 30°, with the top leg of the parallelogram constrained to a horizontal width of 1.5mm, and the overall parallelogram (not the leg, but the overall shape) constrained to a vertical height of 10mm. I generated a second sketch of a similar parallelogram, but this one is angled at 60° and is located at a distance from the origin equal to the radius that I want the fan blades to be - in this case, 29mm (see attachment 2).

From there it is simply a matter of lofting from one sketch to the other, doing a polar transform, and a bit of trimming.

I put a GPL license on all of these files. My intention is to retain credit (cough, cough - yes, a bit of vanity on my part) but to make them completely available to anyone to use however they wish. I'm not sure GPL is the right license - does it allow someone to use these in a commercial project? If not, I'm happy to change it to something that does.

As long as you do not exceed 60°, most 3d printers can print this without supports (see attachment 3).

Feedback is welcome!
Andy

Offline cnr6400

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Re: 3d printable cooling fan
« Reply #1 on: February 05, 2021, 06:49:25 PM »
 :ThumbsUp: :ThumbsUp: :ThumbsUp: Thanks! this fan will come in handy for a couple of cooling jobs in my workshop.  :cheers:
"I've cut that stock three times, and it's still too short!"

Offline awake

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Re: 3d printable cooling fan
« Reply #2 on: February 07, 2021, 03:41:34 AM »
Great! Glad to hear that it is useful.
Andy

 

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