I’ve been concentrating on getting the 3D Printer I was gifted, all built up and working. It’s taken a while but I’m getting reasonable prints now. I hadn’t realised until quite recently that the fan on the front of the extruder wan’t working. This meant material extruded wasn’t cooled and often caused deformations in the print. The fan sometimes requires a flick of a finger to get going but the main problem was the add-on duct supplied with the printer itself. I found that the part used to secure the duct into the fan was slightly too long, causing the fan to stall and overheat. When it did run, it made an awful whine.

I initially thought the fan was faulty but after trying it with the duct removed, this was proved not to be the case (although it’s a bit sluggish to get going). I filed down the duct connector whch partially solved the issue but then, I discovered a circular one on Thingiverse and printed that.

It was on my to-upgrade list but the machine pre-empted me a little. The printer now seems to print in good quality most of the time.