Environmental friendly Heat bed.
Hi ..
Experiencing my room getting substantially warmer when using my new Mks3+ with heatbed (i used a BQ witbox2 without for a very long period) i had this wish/idea. "Wouldn't it be great of only those area's where a print touches the platform would be heated".
Bare in mind i have no degree in printing mechanics and thermodynamics of filaments and i don't know if this could work? But i know for sure that for certain kinds of filament it could work if ony eg the center two rings (out of x rings/ovals/ squares growing bigger and bigger) would heat up..
Curious about your thoughts...
RE: Environmental friendly Heat bed.
Like all things in engineering, the design of the heated bed is a compromise. They had to strike a balance between introducing more complexity, costs, possible failure points and simplicity and reliability. Turned out single heated surface seemed to be the right choice for this size of printer. You don't get selective heating just like that and the reason Prusa opted not to go that way with MK3 is most probably not because nobody have thought of that. You would need several separate heating circuits each with its own cabling, control channels, power MOSFETs, among others. Having said that, the upcoming Prusa XL does exactly what you suggest: its huge working area will consist of several separately controlled heated sections - apparently a worthwile investment in a device of this size and price range.
BTW, you're posting in wrong subforum, this one is about Prusa Connect - remote printing solution, specifically. Your post would have gained more traction on more appropriate subforum.
Best regards,
Zbig