Creality Cr-10 Steel Fan Shroud Modification to Accept 20mm Thick Cooling Fan

screen capture of Fusion360 steel fan shroud with my modifications

I purchased a cr-10 V1 printer on Facebook marketplace that I am in the process of upgrading.  I would prefer that the printer be relatively quiet, and the stock hot end fans are relatively noisy.  There are many 3d printed fan shrouds that others have designed, which are plastic of course.  I want something relatively sturdy and resistant to both melting and burning.  Furthermore,  for this bedslinger type of printer, I am not going to be trying to achieve fast print speeds, I am going to have a direct drive extruder, so the weight of a sheet metal shroud at the hot end and larger cooling fan will not make a major change in weight.    I want to make parts as strong as possible and there is some evidence that printing too fast may result in decreased layer adhesion resulting in weaker parts.  The original CR-10 fan shroud has a 40mm wide, 10mm thick fan directed at the cooling zone heat sink, I am not certain what cfm it generates.  Noctua fans are quieter than the stock fans but the airflow may be less than stock so that could exacerbate heat creep.  The 10mm thick noctua fan could be used without any modification of the hot end shroud, it generates about 5.2cfm at 17.9dB.  You get a little bit more cfm and quieter fan with the noctua 4020 fan, that is 20mm thick, the airflow it generates is rated at 5.5cfm at 14.9dB.  I decided to modify the stock fan shroud to accept a 20mm thick 12V fan.  I plan to run it at full speed.

I used fusion360 to recreate the creality hot end fan shroud but I added extra space to extend the front to allow putting in the 20mm thick fan.  I designed a small amount of material at the interfaces of sides to allow for a bending radius.  I placed some small perforations at the interfaces to facilitate bending by hand. The stock fan shroud I believe is welded at edges, whereas I created some tabs also so that I could use 3mm screws to hold the folded shroud together.  For fun, I put my initials in the center of the fan where there is no air flow anyway and won't change function.

I used SendCutSend (they are amazing, I highly recommend) service to laser cut this part, using 0.8mm thick (0.03inches) A36/1008 mild steel.

laser cut steel fan shroud for cr-10 3d printer to use 4020 noctua fan before folding

I folded the sheet metal by hand without heat, using a piece of wood with square edges clamped at the bending interface.

after folding the sheet metal, comparison of my fan shroud to stock cr-10 fan shroud from an oblique perspective

after folding the sheet metal, comparison of my fan shroud to stock cr-10 fan shroud from an top down perspective

One error I made in my design was that the holes in the front for mounting the fan are good if you want to use 3mm screws and nuts to mount it, however, I wanted to use the noctua anti-vibration silicone mounts, so I had to drill the holes slightly bigger in the face.  After drilling the face was not as pretty as the original laser cut, but that is hidden when the anti-vibration mounts are installed.  So if I were going to reorder the laser cut part, I would make the front holes 4.3mm diameter.  For the part cooling fan, I have reused the original, I used 2mm diameter screws and nuts to hold it in place.  The tabs to hold the assembly use 3mm diameter screws of 6mm length and nuts.

New fan shroud with 4020 noctua fan mounted with anti-vibration mounts, on x carriage.

  You can see a couple of the 3mm screws installed on top to help hold the fan shroud, there is one more on the bottom not seen in this shot. 

Here is a link to the dxf of my fan shroud on google drive, if you want to make one too.

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