RE:
.... They will continue to rely on bed heat.
It’s not a bad idea, really! The bed has to be heated anyway, and the “waste heat” goes into the enclosure.
But: it should be a 230V heater!
I see it myself with my 24V chamber heater. The “effort” required to generate heat at low voltage is quite significant and expensive. It’s easier at 230 volts.
Maybe the next Prusa generation (C2 ???) will eventually come standard with a 230V heater. To keep up with the competition, it’s no longer enough to just have open-source software and a large community—there need to be modern options and features that clearly draw buyers to the Prusa side.
Mods for Core One: Core One HT 450 degrees, Comfortable display , Very fast print start and Reducing noises
Mods for Prusa XL: Very fast print start
RE:
It’s not a bad idea, really! The bed has to be heated anyway, and the “waste heat” goes into the enclosure.
But: it should be a 230V heater!
I see it myself with my 24V chamber heater. The “effort” required to generate heat at low voltage is quite significant and expensive. It’s easier at 230 volts.
Maybe the next Prusa generation (C2) will eventually come standard with a 230V heater. To keep up with the competition, it’s no longer enough to just have open-source software and a large community—there need to be modern options and features that clearly draw buyers to the Prusa side.
Or 120VAC in the US and 100VAC in Japan.
The problem though with using the bed only is it creates too much of a temperature gradient between the bed and the chamber (there is a 50+° difference). This is even more pronounced for large prints along the Z axis. This causes materials like ASA and PC to warp more easily and pull off the plate. For ASA in particular, I'd rather run the bed at 80-90° instead of 115°. However I can't because it won't warm the chamber enough.
RE: What's going on with Prusa's Nextruder HT hotend?
Sorry, I didn't explain myself clearly enough.
I was referring to a two-stage heating system. One heater, as before, for the bed temperature (100, 120, or 230 V), and then a second (smaller?) heater below it that controls the chamber temperature (100, 120, or 230 V).
Perhaps as an optional add-on. If you only want to do multicolor PLA prints with INDX, you don’t need it as much. But if you’re more interested in printing with PETG, ASA, etc., you could select that option when ordering to have it included.
It would also be feasible as an upgrade kit.
Theoretically.
Mods for Core One: Core One HT 450 degrees, Comfortable display , Very fast print start and Reducing noises
Mods for Prusa XL: Very fast print start