Gear VR Front Cover Fan Mount by rluecke

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

My Gear VR S6 edition had an issue with overheating, so I designed this fan mount as an unobtrusive cooling solution. It mounts to the inside of the Gear VR cover and is powered by small USB battery, resulting in a clean look, and has completely eliminated shutdowns due to overheating.
The fan I used was re-purposed from an old Dell laptop, and was part of a dual-fan unit. However, this design made it difficult to re-use the original fan shroud/mount, thus the custom single-fan mount. The fan was attached to the original housing via a press-fit between the plastic center ring and the motor/PCB assembly. I utilized the same method on my design, and it has worked well so far. A little adhesive or epoxy could be used to supplement this attachment, depending on the accuracy of your 3D print.
The actual model number of the fan is Sunon GM0503PEB1-8 ($5 on eBay gets you two fans).
To provide power to the 5V fan, I cut the end off of a USB charging cable from an external battery pack. This kind of cable only has the two power wires inside, which is ideal for this purpose since the wires are a little heavier gauge than those of a regular USB data cable. I soldered the wires directly to the fan PCB--the +5V power wire goes to the red wire/terminal, and the black wire/terminal is ground. The yellow wire can be removed. For clearance, I stripped the outer insulation from the USB cable so that only the small, inner wires pass by the fan blades. A dab of super glue on the USB cord where it enters the fan housing secured it in place.
For the actual cutout in the Gear VR cover, I used a 1mm end mill on a small bench-top mill to cut out the pattern in the included DXF. If you don't have access to this kind of equipment, the DXF could still be printed out and used as a pattern to be cut out with a Dremel or X-acto. Alternatively, you could just cut a single 28mm hole in the cover--you just lose the finger protection that the grill pattern provides (a cluster of small holes may be a better option). With the cover and phone installed, I made my cutout just to the side of the protruding camera of the S6. I think it will actually fit directly over the top of the camera, but I wanted to insure good airflow.
Finally, I used some Loctite Plastics Bonder to attach the fan assembly to the inside of the cover. Other adhesives may work, but I wasn't sure what kind of plastic the Gear cover was made of, so I played it safe. There is a depression designed into the lip of the fan housing to help contain the adhesive, and allow for a cleaner, more secure install.