FanSwap, Customizable Computer Fan Cover

This is a 120mm fan cover, mostly common in computers. Like the million others out there, it protects the fans from foreign objects and your fingers from its blades. This design tho, also allows to swap grille colors and designs without unscrewing it plus when covering two or more fans together (as in computer radiators), it sprawls an overlapping design to make it seem like a seamless unit.

Features:

Modular design
Mix n match colors, add modules for multi-fan configurations
Easy grille insert swap
No longer need to unscrew the grille and very likely, the fan, to change the design, the grille insert can be pulled out to allow to snap-in a new one
Less screws for 2+ fan
There is no need to do all four screws for each fan in a multiple configuration, end fans use three and middle ones use two, diagonally opposite
Seamless design for 2+ fans
It appears to be one large single frame instead of individual ones (you can still use multiple single frames if you’d like that instead)
Large center opening
Shows your fan’s sticker/logo if you’re into that kind of stuff
Will it make a taco?
No, it won’t make a taco but if scaled up and printed in metal, you’d have an interesting grill for your steak and do some mean carne asada tacos

Design

This was modeled and designed in SolidWorks for Makers, fully parametric design, used configurations to switch between the single, double and triple.

Started with a sketch block to define and reference the fan’s main geometry like full size, main opening size, and fastener locations. Then created a sketch placing three of these blocks for the largest configuration to have a “map” for the end configuration.

Then began modeling for the double configuration, this one contains all of the design features used by the others, like the main fastener geometry, main opening geometry, the “bridge” that connects from one grille to the other, the overlapping tabs from one frame to the other, added clearance for the overlapping fastener opening, etc. Having the other configurations in mind, I modeled all features so they would mirror perfectly including the l21hex pattern.

Then created the single configuration by mirroring the top half.

Then for the middle instance which will be used for three or more fans, I cut and mirrored the bottom half.

Design for intent, by knowing the future configurations I made sure to spend the time on the configuration that had all of the features so the others could be derived from it with minimal or no redesign.

I’m really proud of this product, the grille snaps-in to the frame and this mounts straight over the computer fan and/or radiator. If one ever wants to change the grille design and/or color, it’s just a matter of pulling it out and place another one in without any other disassembly which can be very tricky specially inside computer cases.

I made my models free to download on Printables and MakerWorld in hopes that my efforts would go further than just fulfilling my needs.