Improved Prusa XL Buddy Cover

The stock Buddy cover is a piece of bent sheet metal with essentially no ventillation. A serious flaw in the printer's design and a major oversight on behalf of @Prusa3D.

I live in Australia and the room temp in Summer regularly exceeds 42C.

The interals are seeing temps of up to 90C. Electronics do not like heat and the cooler you can keep them, the longer they last.

I saw the original from @Kevin_45728 , but found it had some issues with sitting flush and also found the 40mm fan to be insufficient in the volume of air it could move.

@Kevin_45728 was really generous and uploaded the F360 file so that I could remix it. Thanks mate!

I quickly found it was going to be quicker to redraw it than to mod it, but it gave me most of the critical dimensions as a starting point.

This is designed around the awesome 60mm Noctua NF-A6x25 fan. Other 60mm fans will likely fit, but I haven't tested any. 

I've created a fan grill too. Hexagons are bestagaons!

24V is available on the Buddy Board, but the fan is only available in 5V or 12V, so a buck converter is needed. The LM2596 was selected as it is tiny and can convert the 24V supply to 5V and 12V.

Cable management is a big thing for me, so this was integrated into the design.

Depending on what fastener lengths you have on hand or can source, I've created a set of spacers that can be printed and used in any combination to allow mounting of the buck converter.

Printing:

PETG is fine for this.

0.4mm nozzle
0.20mm layer height
4 perimeters
5 top and bottom layers
0% infill
100% fan speed
No supports

NOTE: This is a detailed print and the cable management has a lot of small perimeters, so I strongly suggest slowing down Small Perimeters to 35mm/s or slower and External Perimeters to 60mm/s. If you ignore this, the cable management will be extremely fragile or fail to print.

BOM:

1. 1 x Noctua NF-A6x25 fan in 5V or 12V. They have the same specs, so whatever is cheaper or available.
2. 1 x LM2596 buck converter. There is an SMD and through-hole type. The SMD version is recommended and allows for the lowest possible mounting height.
3. 2 x M2.5x4 or longer bolts (Depending on what fastener lengths you have on hand or can source, I've created a set of spacers that can be used in any conbination to allow mounting of the buck converter)
4. 4 x M3x35 bolts. Can be a bit longer and 30mm+ should work. Pan/Round heads give the nicest finish. M3 washers are optional.
5. 4 x M3 nuts
6. ~100mm of 0.5-1.0mm2 wire
7. 2 x 3mm fork red crimp terminals
    

Assembly:

1. Solder the wire onto the input side of the LM2596 board. About 80mm is required, but you can test fit and trim them to length at step 4.
2. Use the extension cable that comes with the fan and cut it down to about 40mm and solder the positive and negative wires onto the output side of the LM2596 board. You could just cut the plug off the fan and direct solder the fan, but that makes it a PITA if you ever want to remove or replace the fan.
3. Mount the LM2596 board to the cover with the M2.5 bolts. Print and use some spacers if needed. The spacers generally go on top of the board, not under it to account for longer bolts. Clearances are tight. If you have and LM2596 with through-hole components you may need to trim the tags on the underside of the board and/or ad some spacers under it.
4. Test fit the cover and trim the wires if necessary, then install the fork crimp terminals.
5. Install the M3 nuts
6. Installed the fan and fan grill with the M3 bolts. I deliberately used M3 fasteners to allow a little wiggle room to get the fan and grill perfectly square and flush with the bottom of the cover. Putting the cover and fan against a flat surface to align it all helps a bit.
7. Plug the fan into the LM2596 board then loop the cabling and CAREFULLY slip it under the cable management clips.
8. Turn off the printer.
9. Remove the Buddy cover.
10. Remove the Buddy board. It makes life WAY easier!
11. Back the terminal screws most of the way out - they don't need to be removed completely. It is a little fiddly to get the fork terminals between the heatbed ring terminal and the washer - you just need to hold your tongue in the right position. ;)
12. Tighten the terminal screws down.
13. Reinstall the Buddy Board.
14. Installed the new cover using the original hardware.
15. Job done!

As with all my designs, there are no affiliate links, etc. I get nothing out of them other than the satisfaction of helping the community and some Prusameters if you are kind enough to give my design a LIKE. :)

Happy printing and be sure to check out my other XL mods.

https://www.printables.com/@IPIND3D/models

1. Ground up rebuild as the original F360 file had a lot of issues. It gave me a great starting point and was an awesome effort though!
2. Now has a 60mm fan.
3. Added mounts for a 5V buck converter.
4. Added nuts for bolting on the fan.
5. Cable management is integrated.
6. Added significantly more ventilation.