Wiring your E3D v6 Hotend Fan to your Printrboard

Part of a series on installing the hotend.

Optional Directions

Remember the optional bit of wire and aluminum foil noted in the first page? This is where you will, or won't need them. You'll have really long pieces of red and black wire from your thermistor. Cut off about 4cm of that for use later on if you don't have other bits of wire already around.

Fan Wire

You'll need to strip the fan wires a little bit. They are fragile so be careful. Now take that extra long length of cable you have left over from the thermistor and the extra piece of heatshrink tubing (cut it in half) from the thermistor. Strip the ends of the long wires and solder the red to red and black to black. You've now got a really really long wire connecting to your fan. Leave the connection on the end.

I managed to not get any good photos of this, but I think you've got it down now.

This is a terrible photo

Done Soldering

Now you should have a great looking electrically compatible Ubis drop in replacement. Are you starting to feel proud of yourself? You should be.

Looking sharp

Put your hotend in place about where you want it to go and tighten the extruder down enough so that it isn't going anywhere. Remove the coil from your wire collection and fish your new fan wire along the your previous collection of wires. I used some sandwich bag twist ties to keep the cables neatish at this point.

Keep it together

Always On Fan

If you are going to complain about any of the quality of this build, here is your time to complain. It is really hacky for the importance of the piece, but I haven't had any problems with it. The new hotend fan should be running at all times. That means it should have a solid 12V every time anywhere and it is vitally important that it does stay running or things will overheat and your hotend will clog and/or burn out. If you were in the habit to leaving your Printrbot powered on that means you'll have to change that habit.

I just patched into the source 12V power for my fan. Shove some wires with a little bit of aluminum foil into the back end of the main power connector and you have got a good power source. I did add a zip-tie to further attempt to keep things properly connected.

Just connect your fan wire to those two new live wires, wrap a little electrical tape around it to keep things fit and finished and move on with your life.

Alternate Always On Fan Plans

I think the official Printrbot solution is currently an additional circuit on the z-index detector that boosts that voltage to 12V. I've also heard some people wiring against the heater core power and a normal ground and getting a good 12V. I didn't experiment with anything like that. I went straight for the source.

All Fans Are Go

Plug in your Printrbot to the power supply and your fan should be on. Now you can start fitting the new hotend in place.