I cleaned my fan a few months back and it quieted down quite a bit from the high pitch whine it was making. It was night and day. Yesterday I cleaned my fan and was reminded how much of an impact this cleaning had again as it quieted down a lot.
To clean it, compressed air will remove 90% of this build up or a brush. Do this outside if you can, this fine dust will go airborne. Isopropyl alcohol with cotton swabs will take care of the rest.
Anything you laser produces particles that have to go somewhere.
I’ve read about folks prefiltering the air on their laser cutter exhaust fans but it’s usually with an external fan unit and larger surface areas to last longer. Seems like a smaller filter will just clog quicker vs getting rid of the particulates out the exhaust. I’m pondering using an AC Infinity CLOUDLINE PRO S4 to pull the air out of my laser and removing this 80mm fan. 80mm fans are noisy to begin with.