I wanted to share a finding with my newly purchased A1 printer which I think can help out other people having the same issue.
I noticed high noise levels during my first print and could not figure out why. After messing around with the printer and reading forum posts I still could not find the root cause of the noise. From what I can tell there are a lot of people having problems with fan noise (even on other models than the A1) which they thought would be solved by swapping the MC fan. However, it seems to me that this did not resolve their issue.
I managed to isolate the noise issue to the part cooling fan. I proceeded to remove the four screws that hold the bottom cover to see if I could spot any clear malfunction but I didn’t want to damage the plastic cover so I never managed to remove it. I then re-installed each screw one at a time and ran the fan at 100% speed using the Handy app in between. This is where I found the root cause: the rear right-hand screw (looking from the front). The screw is too long and therefore interferes with the fan blade. I resolved the issue by unscrewing it slightly.
The plastic cover is still held firmly in place by the remaining 3 screws (and snap-hooks I believe) so I doubt there will be any issues that stem from leaving this 4th screw slightly unscrewed.
Hope this helps, it’s always tedious trying to find solutions to issues like this online.
TLDR; If you experience unusual/unwanted noise emitting from the printer, try slightly unscrewing the REAR RIGHT-HAND screw on the bottom of the part cooling fan. The screw interferes with the fan blade when fully tightened.
Thank you! This just helped me finally fix the weird noise on my A1. I had to slightly unscrew (just a few turns) both rear screws on the bottom of the part cooling fan, not just the right one, but now the rattle is finally gone!
Yep this happened on my a1-mini too. For some unknown reason that fan started rubbing on something and making a strange high pitched grinding noise. I loosened the 4 Philip screws ever so slightly and the sound has completely gone now.
Thanks a lot @n_bagge! I had exactly the same issue on my A1 mini from some time and fixed it unscrewing a little bit the rear right, hope the fan didn’t get any damage
Thought I was going mad! Thank you @n_bagge. I started with the screw on the bottom right side of part cooling fan enclosure with the fan running at 20% and it immediately got quieter. Only half a turn was required. I did the same on the bottom left screw and it got quieter still. A quarter turn on the top left and right hex screws that mount the cooling fan to the hotend silenced it all together.
Did your printers make scratching noise? Mine is just doing like very loud wind blowing noise. 1 can still here the printer pretty loud from 2 rooms away. Is this normal, because I thought abount replacing the fan or printing an onw fan duct with a different fan. On the internet it said the printer could be in the living room ,but not with the one, that i have
Thanks to everyone for the intensive search.
I have the same problem with the fan making a very strange noise when spinning up.
Can you please post me a picture of the corresponding ones so I can better understand which ones are meant?
I only have 2 screws at the top of the closed print head when viewed from the front.
Otherwise I only have one screw on the right and left.
Thank you
Look at the part cooling fan from up underneath the bottom. There are small screws (i’m assuming that hold the fan inside the shroud). You just back out (mine was on the right side looking at the printer) like a half turn or so.
I had a similar issue, clicking as fan spun up at low speed only. I found that for me it was not a screw but the impeller being slightly loose on motor shaft and was resolved by a firm press to reseat the parts. Sounds like parts fans are fussy. Adding this option in case someone else is looking for sources of noise.
