Anet A6 40mm Part Cooling Fan Ducts

thingiverse

These are a couple of designs for part cooling fan ducts that utilize 40mm fans. I think this project has been partly unsuccessful, as I'm not actually using these parts and have switched back to the stock radial cooling fan. This is because I originally decided to add a 40mm axial fan due to the noise level of the radial fan. However, while designing these parts, I didn't realize that most 40mm fans are quite underpowered for part cooling fan roles. It's possible to purchase more powerful 40mm fans (particularly 20mm thick ones), but they're also noisy, which defeats the purpose of installing axial fans in the first place. These ducts add a little weight to the extruder assembly. There are two versions of the fan duct nozzle: the 40mm Fan Duct and the 40mm Front Fan Duct. The former is a large duct that mounts to the extruder in place of the original radial fan (using the same screws). It consists of two pieces: the 'Fan Duct Body' and 'Fan Duct Nozzle'. The nozzle is height adjustable by sliding inside the duct body. A notable feature of this design is that the duct channel is very wide, taking up all the space between the x-axis belt and front rail. This helps reduce throttling, allowing lower static pressure fans to push more air through. I have also widened the nozzle outlet since it was causing most of the throttling but I haven't re-tested the new version yet. A simple x-axis cable tie down point is integrated into the 'Fan duct body'. The 'Front Fan Duct' is a different design after realizing my 40mm fans were too weak for the first duct. It sits on the front of the extruder and mounts to it using the two small screws on the side (which hold the stock acrylic bracket in place). The duct is shorter, more direct, and has a wider opening suitable for lower pressure fans. The cooling of this fan was actually okay using a 0.1A PoPrint 40mm fan, but still not as good as the stock radial fan (although quieter). The duct on this design is also pointing a little bit high since I was using a shorter hotend throat at the time; this design will likely need to be modified for the longer stock hotend throat. Rather than throwing the whole project away, I have decided to upload these files anyway as I spent a long time designing them and they may be useful to someone else. I have even uploaded the Fusion 360 files so that you can alter them in any way you wish. I did manage to re-purpose the semi-circular nozzle design to fit the stock radial fan, which you can find here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2847009