Heated Chamber for MK4S
Hi Everyone,
I've recently started printing with ASA filament and plan to try PA-CF soon.
My MK4 was upgrated to an MK4S and moved it into a Prusa Enclosure.
The enclosure temperature during printing stays around 30°C, but reaching closer to 65°C would be ideal for better results.
I’ve seen some DIY solutions in videos that made me raise an eyebrow, especially with people bypassing safety features.
My electronics knowledge is somewhat limited, but soldering isn’t an issue if needed.
Does anyone have recommendations for how to heat the enclosure effectively while keeping safety in mind? Any suggested parts or potential issues I should watch out for when running the printer in a heated chamber?
Thanks in advance for the advice!
RE: Heated Chamber for MK4S
At 65 °C inside the enclosure you will almost certainly get problems with the printer's electronics overheating. When printing ASA or PCCF the temperature in my enclosure reached up to about 45 °C and this caused overheating errors with the printer crashing. I solved this by installing a fan on the electronics box but if you want to reach even higher temperatures you should consider moving the electronics box out of the enclosure altogether.
RE: Heated Chamber for MK4S
I am (off and on) working on an insulated enclosure design based on the Lack V1, with active ventilation, which will pull cool air through the electronics box, to keep the electronics cool, without cooling the enclosure below the set point. Still very much a work in progress, but the new GPIO G-code is making it much easier.
RE: Heated Chamber for MK4S
Thank you both.
The electronic was one of my concerns but I was not expecting issues already at 45°C. Do you know which components are causing the errors?
If it's Loveboard on the nextruder, moving it out of the enclosure already sounds like a nightmare.
I would be curious to see photos of your setups for inspiration .
RE: Heated Chamber for MK4S
Loveboard is mostly just a passthrough, with no significant processing on the board.
The main xBuddy board has temperature warnings that will trip if the chip gets too hot, to protect the chip from failure. It's not that the air is too hot at 45°C, but that the mainboard can't shed heat fast enough, in that environment. A little cool air goes a long way to keeping the chip happy.
RE: Heated Chamber for MK4S
The components on the xBuddy board that will get (too) hot are the stepper drivers and the mosfet for the heated bed. Those have thermal pads on the back side of the board touching the back wall of the case. I guess nobody at Prusa was expecting that those pads can work in both directions and will contribute to the stepper drivers getting too hot when the heated bed is at or over 100 °C for ASA and PCCF. 🙂
I glued some Raspberry Pi cooler fins on to the stepper drivers and the mosfet chip.