Micro Swiss NG Extruder Shroud with a 5015 part cooling fan

After upgrading my Ender 3 with a Micro Swiss NG Extruder I found that the maximum x-axis travel was reduced because the 4010 part cooling blower was hitting the screw heads holding the x-axis belt tensioner in place.  This was a problem as it meant the BLTouch bed probing had a more limited x-axis range than before.

This updated extruder fan shroud fixes this issue by replacing the part cooling fan with a 5015 fan and adding a notch to the shroud to allow the x-axis belt tensioner screw heads to pass it. As a bonus the 5015 fan gives a substantial upgrade to the part cooling performance!

This model uses the original 4010 fan for extruder cooling as that works perfectly well.

This model is based on the ‘Simplified Micro Swiss NG Extruder Shroud’ model by hebnern as it was far easier to work with than the original Micro Swiss model.

The changes made to the original model are:

• Added 5015 fan mount.
• Added notch to allow shroud to pass over x-axis belt tensioner screw heads.
• Added external fillets to smooth out the appearence.
• Various small modification to improve printability.

This is the orientation the model is designed to be printed in:

Use the following settings for supports:

Generate support material: Enabled
Auto generated supports: Enabled
Style: Snug
Support on build plate only: Enabled

Once sliced it should look something like this:

I would strongly advise against using ‘Organic’ supports, when I tried them they had a habit of growing through the fan exhaust holes and expanding inside the model where they cannot be removed.  They also produced an inferior result for this model.

The screw holes for both fans are sized so that all of the fan mounting screws should self-tap into the plastic and not require any nuts.

This image shows the fan shroud clearing the x-axis belt tensioner screw heads:

In the process of developing this model I tried many different 5015 fans.  I found that some makes of fan did not work with the PWM fan control signal, operating at 100% or 0% only.

The best fan that I found, bought from AliExpress, was the fan in the photo below.  This fan's speed is fully controllable and produces a very powerful airflow.