Ender 5 Bracket and fan holders for Flexion Extruder/ Hot End

Last crawled date: 4 years, 3 months ago

I have an Ender 5 and liked the look of the Flexion Direct Extruder/ Hot End so I bought one... in the knowledge that there was no previous kit to fit it directly. I felt it best to mount it on the X-Axis carriage sideways... See image... The newest model has some heat sink fins that would not be optimally 'aired' if it faced the carriage and the Y-axis would be reduced by the stepper.
I did create a custom plate from 2mm steel to hold the extruder/ stepper onto the X-Axis carriage. It helps if you know some engineers who have Post drills capable of cutting holes in metal at the right dimensions.
The stock metal Hot End fan holder was suitable, but not quite the right size, so rather than throwing it, I cut it down to size with my Dremel and utilised it. I did design a Hot End Fan holder to print although I'm not using it in my set up... the printed version has fins to direct the air onto the heat sink which may be better.
But this project has shown me that the correct number of printers to own is n+1 where n is the number of printers you currently have... (a concept stolen from cyclists :-) ), what a pain it is to have to re-assemble the printer to print a test part, to find it's not quite the right size and have to dismantle again!! Grrr!
NB. Flexion recommend that the extruder be screwed directly to the Stepper motor. I have prototyped 3 different options,
This one... with the bracket between the extruder and Stepper
With the metal bracket as an "L" shape going under and supporting the Extruder/Stepper from underneath.
As this one, but the bracket extending behind and attaching to the back of the stepper,
And after discussing these with an engineer friend of mine...
A variation of 3 combined with the bracket from 2
From a stability point of view, I consider that the current model offers the best stability and doesn't reduce the build area by any significant degree.