Toolhead Fan Lifespans

[lawson.brian]

I thought I would check to see if there is any sort of consistent time of failure of the toolhead fans.

In this instance, I am mainly concerned with the hot end fan with constant chamber heating. I don't really know at what hours it might be good swap them out

The thought process I have is; hot end fan = £5, damaged revo voron heater from blob of death = £30, potential cleanup = priceless.

Are people getting 500 hours, 2,000 hours etc before failure?

[Crashdown]

The only fans I have had die were cheap ones. The old Creality Ender fans I think a few died on me, and one was a Winsinn 4010 ball bearing fan from Amazon that lasted about 18mnths. 

There was no blob of death though. In my experience if there isn't enough cooling the hotend will just clog. Isn't a blob of death usually caused by hotend leakage or maybe by a part detatching from the build plate and sticking to the hotend?

I bought some Sunon 4010 fans 4 years ago and all still work. I still have a bunch spare because none have stopped working.

Edited yesterday at 01:16 AM by Crashdown

[MingShun]

I'd say 200 to 500 hours before failure.  It's not because the elevated temperatures did something to the bearings, it's because I'm using a hex wrench while the fan is running.  Like when trying to get to the extruder to clean out a melted filament jam.

One end of hex wrench then gets in between the fan blades during a moment of inattention, a rapid unscheduled disassembly, and it's time to take everything apart and find a replacement.  

I was pretty mad too.  Those fans weren't cheap and I did it twice.

Generally speaking though, so long as you aren't testing to see which wins in a fight between plastic fan blades and metal tools, those fans are reliable and you don't need to replace them for years.  If they're going to fail, it's either going to be in the first few hours or you're set for a long while.  If you're going to replace them, it's mainly because they're starting to rattle and becoming very annoying.  Not from outright failure.

Edited yesterday at 04:59 AM by MingShun

[claudermilk]

I put a GDSTIME fan in my Stealthburner about 3 years & 3500 hours ago. Still running strong.