My NUC needed an SSD brain transplant, which presented a good opportunity to clean the dust out of the fan exhaust vents.  It was almost completely clogged:

I vacuumed it out, which didn’t work too well, since the dust was a little greasy, so I hauled out the carpentry tools (my compressor and blower attachment),

and gave it a good blast.  Check out the after picture for the vents:

Here it is, reassembled

Ready to be my little workhorse once again.  I also blew the dust out of my older non-skull canyon NUC, which I had abandoned (switching to a backup) when it started emitting a strong burnt electronics smell.  That unit is now fully functional again too, and doesn’t smell like burnt electronics anymore!

These NUCs are nice little machines, but are really susceptible to dust clogs, as the vent spacing is really tight.  Once those gets clogged, there’s basically no airflow possible.