Creality Fan Shroud (yes another one) by lewtwo

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

Well I got another printer. It is an 'refurbished' Hictop CR-10 (I thought I was ordering a CR-10S ... oops, my mistake). So while assembling it I tried to mount my dual leg fan shroud ... no joy: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2805046
The CR-10 uses the old style Creality four-fin heat sink (as opposed to the current 9 fin version). Turns out the problem was actually the socket head screw head sticking out of the heat sink. The newer model uses a proper grub set screw that does not stick out. Simple solution is to replace it. The problem being I do not happen to have a set screw the right size. Time to start a new fan shroud design that can be used on either model as well as with or without part cooling fans and level sensor.
Step one:
First up is a minimal shroud for the standard 40mm x 10mm axial cooling fan. I tried downloading several of these but found none totally suited to my task. Most also need supports and/or a lot of clean up. This stroud was designed from the start to require NO SUPPORT when printed face down. I am not going to tell you how many days I worked on this or the amount of prototypes that would up in the recycle bin before I got something that I was satisfied with.
The fan mounting face is exactly 26mm from the vertical centerline of the nozzle.The top and bottom fit tightly against the heat sink and there is a notch for the screw head on the old style nozzle. You might also use this for the central fan along with one of the numerous dual fang part cooler strouds.
You will need two M3x20mm socket head cap screws to mount this shroud. I also like to use two M3x0.5mm thick brass washers between the screw heads and the shroud. You need a nice firm mount for the nozzle. Those two screws are the ONLY thing that keeps the nozzle aligned vertically to the world. I printed this in ABS without any supports. Note that you need to leave this part on the bed until fully cooled. Elsewise you will get a convex face.
This part weighs: 6.3 grams
Creality's metal shroud weighs: 48 grams
Step Two (7 May 2018):
This adds a provision for a Creality style 40mm x 10mm centrifugal part cooling fan and maintains the same location for the part cooling fan that the stock Creality aluminum mount uses. In this way one can use any of the available nozzles that have been created for the CR-10 or Ender-2 or the stock nozzle if you have not lost it like I did. The advantage here is that this fan stroud leaves enough room on the left side to mount a Greentech Touch sensor using the two remaining M3 inserts. Flat washers are used to adjust the height of the sensor. It is designed for a M3 x 8mm long socket head cap screws and 3 M3 x 0.5 mm thick brass washers on each side. M3 x 8mm screws are also used for mounting the bracket to the carriage.
Much to my dismay, I found the only way I could get clean faces for the mounting holes of the stroud was to use two custom supports. These have been designed to pop off easily and require NO cleanup.
The picture show prototype parts mount to a CR-10 carriage. I can not claim to have actually printed anything with this yet as I now have to work out the modifications to the Marlin Firmware for the Ender-2 PCB I am using.
Fan Stroud weigh: 13 grams
Sensor Mount Weight: 2.6 grams
Sensor Offset: X = -26.75 mm, Y = -4.0 mm
This is a work in progress. When the project is complete I will also release the source DWG files (I mean DXF files because Thingiverse can not deal with DWG files).
All of the referenced files are the exclusive work product of the author and placed into the Public Domain by the author 24 April 2018 without any warranty expressed or implied.