FlashForge Creator Pro - reversed fan duct

thingiverse

I tried printing one of these: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:191297, but it requires a longer screw which I just don't have. The longest screw sold by nearby hardware stores is 35mm, which is the same length as the ones that came with the machine, and they were just too short, I needed the extra 5mm... So I designed my own! This duct serves as the spacer, fan housing, and fan duct. I install the duct with the original 35mm screw, then install the fan, and yeah no extra 5mm is needed. You can still mount the fan to the cartridge, but this way: you will need two very long screws per extruder, that is, eleven millimeters for the fan, twelve millimeters for the spacer, one-point-five millimeters for the heat sink, fifteen millimeters for the aluminum mounting block, plus five millimeters into the stepper motor, that's forty-four point five millimeters, so you might want to get some forty-five-millimeter M3 screws... You lose the ability to quickly switch between PLA mode and ABS mode. I designed a cover to change wind direction, so it's easy to switch between PLA and ABS (or any material you want to cool down faster or slower). When printing PLA (or other materials that require faster cooling), you cover the upper air path and have the fan reversed (sucking air from the heat sink), so the wind blows around the just extruded material. When printing ABS (or other materials that require slower cooling), you cover the bottom air path, leave the upper path open, and have the fan forward (blowing air into the heat sink), so no air blows the just extruded material. Instructions This is designed for my printer (FlashForge Creator Pro), but it should mount on any similar extruders. I've heard that some printers have aluminum mounting blocks mounted in different positions, so you might need longer or shorter ducts. For me, that's around 34mm from the edge of the aluminum block to the edge of the cartridge, so this duct leaves around 35mm space over there. If your printer has a different length, just don't print this; you will either not be able to mount it, because it's too short hit the front door when the cartridge goes to Ymax, because it's too long. I printed this with PLA, but it might be better to print in ABS, because the built-in spacer is touching the heatsink and the screws, and those would get to around 50C-60C during print (depends on environment temperature), and PLA does get soft at that temperature. If you printed this in PLA, do not turn on the "disable fan for the first X layers/height" options in your slicer software, or you will either get deformation, or the spacer melts, and the screws sink into the spacer. Sorry, but this thing needs supports to print. My print options: PLA at 220c nozzle / 60c bed (to get good adherence) 60mm/s periphery & infill, 50% speed for external periphery & solid inlays, 30mm/s for bridge and overhangs 0.2mm layer height Supports After print, you might want to remove the supports and overhangs around the fan housing very well; or else you will have problems sliding the fan in/out... (that happened to me; I squeeze the fan in and have a hard time digging it out)