Designing an extruder cooler for my Replicator 1
I purchased my Makerbot Replicator 1 nearly three years ago. I don’t think at that point it was wide-spread knowledge that PLA likes to be cooled as it extrudes and thus, no extruder cooler. Most modern PLA printers have these standard. Up until now, I’ve pointed a desk fan at my prints to provide cooling.
This weekend I decided to model up (in Maya) a fan mount to use as an extruder cooler: Works great, uses the stock hardware so nothing new (other than the fan) is needed. I use a removable glass build plate affixed with springy metal clips. These clips stick up off the build platform and will hit anything slightly lower than the gantry. Because of this, I designed this to shoot a jet of air just below the tip of the nozzle, but keeping the whole apparatus above the base of the gantry.
Download the model and get install directions over on Thingiverse.
[sketchfab id=”9e317b81ac7342dea61df0332dad8a28″]