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| Clean passive cooling on a stepper motor |
Cool down your steppers : active or passing ?
For some time I was developing a new filament feeder, made out of PLA plastic, and finally, after a long print, I stumbled upon a feared issue : the motor gets hotter with work, and since it was over-extruding it got hot to the point it started to melt the pla around its screw mounts...I never wanted the usual bulky fans all around my steppers, so I decided to try passive cooling first. This works beautifully without clobbering the printer.
My setup : passive sticked heatsinks
I used low cost 4x4 cm heat sinks from ebay (Got 5 of these for $7, eg. "Aluminium Heatsink for 3w or 5w High Power LED"). They are held in place with the excellent $7.50 "Thermal Adhesive Tape 3M Heatsink 100 x 100mm" again from ebay. It is a kind of double face sticker that you cut to your will.
I added heat sinks only to the X/Y/E stepper motors, since the Z motor (bottom case of the ultimaker) will not get as hot as it is not moving a lot. Well, unless you use the Joris option on a big object, of course. I am not sure there is enough room also.