Post drive gear filament guide and fan mount for the Qu-Bd Two-Up or One-Up

thingiverse

I wanted to be able to print with flexible filament and the Qu-Bd "up" machines have a large open gap between the drive gear and the top of the extruder nozzle, which makes printing with flexible materials impossible. This drop in part solves that problem by providing a tube for the filament to go through. I also bought a fan a while back to prevent overheating of the drive "chamber", which previously caused some disasters, but I had been super gluing it to the side. This part includes a mount for that fan, which you can find here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00E37LSE8/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me= I just saw the bad reviews, but I must say, my little fan has been truckin' for over a year without a problem. I used an old cell phone charger as the 5v power supply. IMPORTANT UPDATE! I have discovered that, due to the fact that the guide tube needs to be so close to the actual size of the filament, retracting PLA all the way out is nearly impossible. I would recommend AGAINST using this mod with PLA, due to the fact that it plugs up at the end and ends up being wider than 2mm, which will not fit through the hole. If this happens to you, I've had good luck with clipping the filament as far down as possible, then carefully removing the mod with the filament still attached. Flexibles don't seem to plug up at the end like PLA, so they're fine, and I'd venture to guess that ABS would be okay as well. Also, the PLA I printed this with is beginning to show some signs of heat distortion, though not enough to affect its usefulness yet.. I've run a few 3+ hour prints with it and overall it is holding up well. I'd recommend you keep an eye on this and let me know if you have any ideas to remedy it if it becomes a problem. Instructions I printed mine at .2mm layer height and 25% infill with PLA. I recommend you drill out the filament guide hole to provide a smoother surface. Make sure when you print with flexible filament, you keep it SLOW, make sure the first layer isn't too close to the bed, and run it at the appropriate temperature or the plastic WILL back up and find a way to scrunch into the drive chamber.