5015 Radial Fan Adapter for A5S - JGAurora (JGMaker) by _Isaiah_

Last crawled date: 4 years, 1 month ago

The JGAurora (now rebranded JGMaker) A5S is a great printer, and I'm very happy with almost every aspect of it. However, one place where it definitely leaves something to be desired is in the stock part cooling system. While it worked OK for most things, there came a time when I was trying to print a model with steeply overhanging points and the stock cooling just wouldn't cut it. I designed this adapter to allow a standard 5015 radial fan (24 volt, 0.1 amp) to be mounted in place of the stock fan, and it works far better than the original. Enjoy!
Notes:

Make sure to print this with ABS so that it can withstand the heat from the nozzle!


I'm currently using adapter V1.2. This adapter is a vast improvement over the stock fan and duct, and greatly reduces cooling issues. However, I've never been totally satisfied with the airflow pattern. It blows more air toward the front of the printer, whereas ideally the air should spread out evenly toward the front and back. I tweaked the design slightly and printed version 1.3, but I never got around to testing it because version 1.2 already works almost perfectly. I'm posting V1.3 in case anyone wants to try it, but I want to make it clear that V1.3 has not yet been tested. I do plan to test it myself sometime if no one else tests it first, but as of this writing (3/21/20) I haven't. If you decide to try it, please let me know how well it works and what sort of air distribution you get.


I very carefully measured all around my printer (A5S) to make sure that this adapter wouldn't run into anything over the entire extent of the build volume, so no worries on that count for owners of the A5S. I can't guarantee that for owners of the A5 or A3S, though. Also, the A5S uses a 24 volt, 0.1 amp fan, but it's possible other printers require a different voltage or amperage. If anyone tries it on one of those machines, please let me know how it goes so that I can inform others here.


This adapter is designed to print without supports. In reality, however, I found that one part tends to get rather wobbly as it's printing before it's connected to the rest, so I added a custom piece of support material just to steady that part. I've uploaded versions both with and without this support, so you can choose whichever you like.

Don't forget to read the installation instructions! (below)
Installation Instructions:
For the installation you'll need:
The allen wrenches supplied with your printer
A wire cutter and stripper
A soldering iron
Step 1: Remove the stock air duct from the bottom of the hotend. It's a white plastic piece held in place by one screw underneath.
Step 2: You'll need to remove the black metal plate that's over the two fans on the back of the hotend. It's held in place by two or three screws on the sides. Once you have those out, you can begin pulling the plate off, but be careful! The stock part cooling fan is screwed onto this plate, so you won't be able to fully remove it right away. Pull it off enough to expose the part cooling fan wires. Cut these wires close to the fan, and finish removing the metal plate. Make sure to leave enough wire behind to work with so that you won't have to do any extensive rewiring.
Step 3: Take a 24V 100mA 5015 radial fan and place it into the adapter. I included holes in the adapter to correspond to the mounting holes in the fan itself, but I found that it isn't necessary to further secure the fan. Slide the fan's wires through the adapter's wire guides (see photos), and trim off any excess.
Step 4: Solder the new fan's wires to the old fan wires in the hotend. Make sure to get the polarity right, or you'll burn out your fan! Once you've got the fan connected, carefully put the adapter and fan into place and screw it down with three screws in the sides.