QMB Ender 3 Microswiss (clone) hot-end and part cooler

(old 2019 design imported from Thingiverse)

This is a remix of my QMB cooler for the Microswiss clone hotends. It has not been tested with a genuine Microswiss yet! Please let me know the results if you test it with a real one!

QMB ==Quiet,Modular,Blower-based Ender 3 hot-end and part cooler (if you have an idea of a catchier name, feel free to suggest it!)

Unlike the original QMB, I only made a dual-blower version of this as I figure if you're printing with extra heat, you're going to want the possibility of extra cooling!

This was designed for the Ender 3. I don't know if it will fit an Ender 5 or a CR10 or not (I've heard parts are swappable, but don't have access to try). Please let me know the results if you test it on one!

I designed this with several things in mind: 1. Forced air through the hotend heatsink.

I'm amazed at how well the Ender 3 works with fans only blowingat the heatsink with no exit ductwork. I wanted to correct this and have air ductedto,through, andaway from the heatsink. 2. No spillage of air from the heatsink to the part.

This is important for when you don't want airflow on your part, such as when printing with materials that like to shrink. The air is forcedbehind the heatsink, through back-to-front and straight up and away. 3. Larger openings for the part cooler ducts.

Far too many coolers put a high restriction on the fans with very small duct nozzle openings, and fans typically do not flow well through restrictions. 4. Blowers instead of fans.

Fans are great at airflow. Blowers are much better at (an designed for) maintaining pressure through restrictions. 5. Low noise.

Axial fans with the intake facing forward producea lot of noise. They wereby far the noisiest parts of my printers.

I've found that 4020 and even 4010 blowers area lot quieter than 4010 fans, while moving more air through restrictions. The largest source of noise from blowers is theintake. I aimed the intake away from the room to help mitigate this. This is far from perfect, I believe a shroud can be attached to further quiet the intakes down (I may design one in the future), but at this point, the power supply and mainboard fans areby far the loudest part of my printer. 6. Airflow to the part with a place to go.

I've angled the airflow coming out of duct nozzles from both sides so the air flows across the extruder nozzle at an angle to the rear. This will draw in air from the front as well, pulling air across the tip of the extruder nozzle, where you want it. Many part coolers do this, but many simply blow straight at the nozzle from both sides, leaving a dead-zone in the middle with no airflow. 7. Swappable/adjustable/removable duct nozzles

I made the duct nozzles very simple for remixing in case anyone wants to experiment with different shapes, angles, opening sizes, etc. The two sides are mirror images of each-other, so you really only need to design one (you can mirror a part in cura with a mouse-click). The nozzles in the uploaded picture (of just two nozzles) are actually an earlier version, the uploaded model is an improvement on that. Printing variations on the design is quick and uses very little material.

You can trim the duct top (or simply slice it with it lowered slightly through the built plate) if you want it raised higher once pressed all the way in, or lower it easily just by pulling it down a little (it should fit snugly enough to hold, more on that in the Assembly section).

The duct nozzles can be removed if you're not using the part cooler while printing materials prone to shrink when cooled, providing even more visibility to your work. 8. Modular for different fan arrangements.

The back plate forms a duct for cooling the heatsink, and acts as a platform for the front plate which holds the part cooler fan(s) and ductwork. The front can easily be remixed for different blowers. I provided a model for a single 4020 blower and another for dual 4020 blowers for part-cooling. 9. Open view of the nozzle for remote viewing

I didn't want the part cooler making it difficult to see the nozzle from a camera. 10. Good clearance from the heat-block.

My favorite part cooler melted while printing at 280C recently (yes, with an all-metal insert in the hot-end) because it was too close to the heat-block.

The single-blower front housing has decent clearance, and the dual-blower front housing has a very open area shaped to allow convection up from the heat-block.

Note: I've notyet tried printing at 280C with this cooler! It should hold up, but I can't say for certain yet. 11. Access to service the bowden tube

Both front housings provide full access to the bowden tube fitting. The dual-blower front housing also has a full relief for the set-screw (grub-screw) holding the heatbreak into the heatsink.

Backplate octolapse: https://youtu.be/ieJv_NF62Cg

Front housing octolapse: https://youtu.be/Iz27TH-qa0U

Duct nozzles octolapse: https://youtu.be/KrtulF2xaNU

Things I may change / possible improvements

As mentioned above, Imay create a shroud to quiet the fans even further. Right now they're quiet enough that I can't hear them over the obnoxious stock main-board fan or the power supply fan (upgrading those will come first).

~~Imay add a bit more clearance around the heatsink fins (but not at the top and bottom) to provide for a bit of air to bypass the fins (since they're so close together) allowing the 4010 blower to operate a bit more efficiently. It'll be interesting to see if it still cools as well (or better).~~

This is not needed with this hotend as the gaps between the fins is much greater than stock. The 4010 blower shows no signs of stalling and runs very quietly on mine.

Imay experiment with and upload some more duct nozzles. Those are easy to swap and very economical to print.

Print Settings

Printer Brand:

Creality

Printer:

Ender 3

Supports:

No

Resolution:

0.16mm layer height

Infill:

15% grid

Filament: Any PETG

Notes:

Lay the back on its back to print, it won't need supports. You may need to dig a tiny bit of drooped material out of the holes for the M2 nuts. The end of a pair of hemostats worked well for me. The nuts should fit in very tightly, you don't want them coming out when you're working on the printer (eg: swapping the front during an upgrade).

The fronts both have a 0.16mm layer closing off the left and right ducts, 6mm up from the base. This is intentional to eliminate the need for support for a ledge on both side. This single layer trims out extremely easily with a pair of cutters or an exacto blade after printing.

You will not need supports for this thing.

The left and right ducts should print without supports with enough fan and low enough layer settings (don't go thicker than 0.16mm, 0.12mm or 0.08mm would be better), just make sure the rectangular flat is against the build plate (flip them over).

The v2 nozzles from the original QMB are the exact same files as the nozzles included with this thing. If you're upgrading from that one and are already using the v2 nozzles, you don't need to re-print them. If you're upgrading from the original QMB using the original nozzles, please print the v2 nozzles as the originals are sized for one fan with two nozzles (the dual fans will stall with those smaller nozzles).

Custom Section

Hotends I'm using

I am currently using this with this hotend from Trianglelabs.

It should also work with this one from FYSETC.

Please note that these have a different shape and size from the much cheaper ones, like this one.Those will not work with this thing.**

Category: 3D Printer Parts