Mesh Front for Fractal Design R7 Compact

What Is It?

This is a replacement front frame for the Fractal Design R7 Compact. It interfaces with the existing mounting provisions of the case, so you can swap this in and out with the stock front panel as you wish. For example, maybe you want more cooling in the summer heat, and the stock front panel in winter months.

Parts are designed around the Prusa Mk3S+ bed size, so the vertical frame rails are split in two and joined with heat inserts and bolts. Similarly, the front mesh panel is split into two.

Why?

I wanted to see if I could improve the temps in my Fractal Design R7 Compact case without buying a new case. In hindsight, I should have bought their Meshify model, but here we are. 

This was a fun design challenge, first having to model the front of the case, then creating a push-pin design to mount to it, working around the bed size limitations of the Prusa Mk3S+, and finally learning about modifiers and meshes in PrusaSlicer.

Printing Considerations

All parts here are printed with PETG on a 0.6mm nozzle at 0.4mm layer height. I've included the PrusaSlicer .3mf project files for all of the parts. 

The trickiest things to print are the mesh panels. I've included specially designed modifier parts that you can use in PrusaSlicer to generate the infill using modifier meshes (here's a good video from Prusa if this is new to you, as it was to me). These should all be in the .3mf files, and you can tweak the settings to make an infill / mesh pattern as you like. I'd love to see what a multi-filament printer could do with colors on this one.

Alternative Mesh Material

Initially, I planned to use a different mesh material stretched across the print bed for my mesh (here's an example of the technique), but the mesh panels take up nearly the entire print bed, and I had difficulty getting the material to lay flat without interference. 

Required Hardware

• (16) 10mm x 1.5mm disk magnets OR (8) 10mm x 3mm disk magnets
• (8) M3 heat inserts, no longer than 5.8mm
• (8) M3 x 5 socket head screws
• (8) M5 heat inserts, no longer than 5.8mm
• (8) M5 x 12 button head screws

Assembly

The M5 hardware is used to join the frame components together while the M3 hardware and magnets are used to secure the mesh panels to the frame.