Status: fully tested, but not yet released

Updates:

• 2020/12/27: individual renderings for each application
• 2020/12/21: improve documentation, with application variables
• 2019/06/16: design solidified, multiple variants tested (Triple Micro Swiss, Dual Micro Swiss, Chimera, Cyclops NF, Dual V6, Single V6)

Introduction

Back in May 2019 I started to customize dedicated printheads, e.g. combining CR10 hotends / Micro Swiss Hotends in dual and triple mode – and thereby required a dedicated Part Cooler. This lead me to develop my own Parametric Part Cooler in OpenSCAD, adapting the design of Radial Fan Fang by Lion4H as I used that one successful for E3D V6 – now a general approach coded entirely in OpenSCAD:

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I started with the central heatsink fan in the geometric center, and route the pipes (symmetrically) around it, back to the nozzle; on top using 5015mm fan blower – after a couple of hours the basic form was defined.

As long I am in edit or tune mode, the part cooler is rendered with a few corners – yet, when exporting STL format, the pipe is calculated with refined spline and smooth surface:

Variables

part_cooler() takes following variables with their defaults:

• m=40: size of heatsink fan
• t=2: thickness of fan mount
• zoff=17: z-offset of air outputs
• yoff=8: y-offset of air outputs
• ws=12: extra width space
• wx=35: cutout width X at the bottom
• sq2=0.6: relative squeeze Y-wise at air outputs
• sq3=0.6: relative squeeze Z-wise at air outputs
• zb=0.5: relative Z bend
• smooth=false: switch of smooth pipe rendering (false: fast rendering / editing mode, true: export to STL)
• name="noname": label on both sides
• tscale=1: text/label x/y scale

Needless to say, to set or alter those variables you require the fan and the hotend as a model so you can model the part_cooler() around it.

Applications

After a couple of weeks the part_cooler() was designed for various hotends:

• Triple Micro Swiss (3x CR10 Hotends): largest part cooler, and first application
• Chimera 2-in-2: two filament/material and two nozzles, yet, a small common heatsink with E3D V6 nozzles
• Cyclops NF or Lerdge 2-in-1 V2: simple non-mixing 2-in-1 printhead – in use currently on the Ashtar C #1 (Core XY)
• E3D Volcano: although designs exist, I just wanted to see how my cooler performs in comparison – in use currently on Ashtar K #1 (Prusa i3-like) with 0.6mm nozzle
• E3D V6 Lite: just an excercise to make it work for this popular setup as well – in use currently on CTC DIY I3 Pro B Y3228

Application Variables

Pros / Cons

Pros:

• parametric, reusable design
• source code available (OpenSCAD) [not yet]
• modular/stack use:
  • either use below or above existing heatsink fan
  • e.g. add LED Strip Fan Mounts

Cons:

• other parts must be available as models in order to determine parameters of the part cooler
• heatblock(s) should wear silicon cover, as air outputs partially affect heatblock which should be avoided

Download

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3680198 (not yet released)

Currently all my parts reside in a single large parts.scad for all Ashtar 3D printers, it helps me to improve designs quickly, but hinders me to release part designs in OpenSCAD source individually – it’s all interconnected and therefore avoid split it into separate files for now. As soon it’s resolved I will release the OpenSCAD sources.

For now three part coolers I released in STL downloadable on the dedicated pages:

• Triple Nozzle Printhead
• Dual Nozzle Printhead
• Cyclops NF

Impressions

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I’m quite happy with the result and use this Parametric Part Cooler for all my planned use cases.

References

• Radial Fan Fang by Lion4H

or

• 3 different Part Coolers for the Diamond Hotend