Geetech A10 Part Cooling

thingiverse

The 'Geeetech A10' yields impressive results right out of the box, but there are areas that can be refined. Specifically, 'part cooling' and the 'extruder' merit improvement. This design replaces the hot end heat sink mount with a printed alternative that provides superior cooling for the heat sink, offers a mounting point for the existing part cooling fan, and optionally allows for an additional part cooling fan installation. The extra fan delivers part cooling from both sides of the nozzle. Assembly is straightforward, but the 'Bottom Clamp' requires some fiddling to fit. It's likely that it could be omitted, but I prefer having a more stable nozzle with it in place. The holes for M3 screws accept M3 screws directly with some force applied, but I like using a tap for a few turns to get things started. The M2 screws slide into place easily. A slot for a cable tie is provided - mid height on the left rear upright. LED lights can be fitted using the 'Light Bar' which is super glued to the bottom front of the 'Body'. Logically, the LEDs will connect in parallel with the heat sink cooling fan, but my heatsink cooling fan runs at 24V and suitable LEDs are required. Note - contrary to some YouTube articles, my part cooling fan also operates at 24V but, as reported, will only run at 100%. The pressure arm in the extruder of my Geeetech A10 failed after just a few hours of operation so I took the opportunity to replace the entire extruder with a belt drive alternative that I was using on another printer - see https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3179561 When observing how slowly the extruder stepper turns in normal operation, it's clear there must be a resolution issue and a geared or belt driven extruder is necessary. 04/10/2018 - Added alternative light bar. 19/10/2018 - Body.stl updated. Top lugs thickened and channels added for fan wiring. Used 2 12V fans in series for part cooling and 24V LED strip for lighting. By un-commenting #define FAN_SOFT_PWM in configuration.h, the fan speed can be controlled using PWM. Nozzles are a loose fit to accommodate tolerances of part cooling fans. I simply use a general purpose adhesive to secure the nozzles to the fans. 10/12/2018 Revised the nozzle stl's to allow fixing with M2 fan screws.