"Layer Shift" advanced cooling fan duct for A8 printer

thingiverse

This is a modified design borrowing heavily from the Spaceship fan by Paul0. It occurred to me that in the original design with vents facing each other, air from one vent would collide with the oncoming stream from the other. Thus, air velocity would be reduced and air would hang around longer, potentially cooling the nozzle (unwanted) and reducing work cooling (also unwanted). I wondered what would happen if the design were altered so that streams performed a "near miss"...each passing the other to one side, with the nozzle in the middle. Since the streams diverge, there is likely to be some air mixing in the space around the nozzle, but much less than in the "head-on" version. Initial tests indicate improved overhang and bridging performance as well as fine detail. The angle of vents in this version may not be optimal...which is why I've marked it a "work in progress." I'm still testing it (as are a few others) but I think we've seen enough to release it here without too much risk. *note. The fan is large and on a standard A8, the left-hand side almost grazes the Z-axis lead screw when the carriage is returned to the home position. Please ensure you check there is room for the fan before homing your print carriage, in case your gap is smaller! I just updated the description so that it says "fan duct" not "fan"...yes I know the two are different; I'm sure someone would have pointed that out at some point. By the way, the reason it's called "Layer Shift"...well, just look at it. It reminded me of some of the models I've found split and disjointed when things go wrong...so once I'd seen that, I couldn't think of it any other way.