Front 40mm fan grill and light bar

thingiverse

I decided to try adding a piece of 12V LED strip to the hot end cooling fan, lighting up the area under the nozzle. I also added a little switch and potentiometer so you can turn on or adjust the light. Using just a pot might not be the smartest way to control a LED, but it works for this application and the current flowing through the pot is relatively low (I measured about 20mA with the used LED strip, which is less than 1/4 Watts). I'm using this on a Petsfang on a Tevo tornado, but I think this design is more universal. There's also an optional clip that you can print twice to secure the LED strip. I don't use them myself because I simply used some hot glue to keep it in place - maybe you feel safer with the two clips. As a LED strip has two continuous rails for +12V and GND, you can attach the pot on one rail and the switch to the other side and only need one wire for either +12V or GND (depending on where you put the other one) to run below the strip to the switch. I used a standing type 10k pot. I cut off almost all of the connection pins and directly soldered the input voltage GND to the pot's middle pin and soldered the strip's one side GND contact to one of the other pins on the pot (it doesn't matter which, this only flips the way you later have to turn the pot to change the brightness). Now the +12V input wire runs behind the strip to the other side where the switch is located and is soldered to one of its contacts. Then you only need another short wire from the switch to the +12V of the LED strip. I used a micro push button switch 7mmx7mm like this one: [https://www.amazon.com/SODIAL-Self-locking-Button-Switches-7mmx7mm/dp/B01G6P1G8W](https://www.amazon.com/SODIAL-Self-locking-Button-Switches-7mmx7mm/dp/B01G6P1G8W). I recommend first soldering the wires and contacts, then using hot glue or something similar to put it all together - I did this in three steps and not all at once. First, I glued the switch into its place, then the strip, and lastly the pot, making sure the single wire is correctly seated in the channel. As most users won't be interested in my Velo17 logo, I also added a version without logo so you can easily add your own. In the picture, you can see my logo simply painted with a white pen. Update 16.3.18: Added STEP file so users can easily modify the design