Good max temp for an enclosure?  

Re: Good max temp for an enclosure?

Hi Nik,

what materials are you printing? if you are contemplating PLA then you will probably have disappointing results

I believe I read that Prusa kept their printer room at a constant 30 centigrade so I would guess that is high enough, they were printing ABS parts at the time. (they have moved office since then!

extended time at high temperatures kills electronics, your electronics will get hotter in a hotter environment, they need a temperature difference to transfer heat into the environment

any drafts are likely to cause a steeper change gradient, if the enclosure temperature is higher, this may adversely affect your printing parts

How do you plan to cool the printer without causing drafts?

Re: Good max temp for an enclosure?

At 30 to 32C enclosure temperature, I can already print polycarb with a 115C bed temperature.

I don't think you need your enclosure much higher than that.

65C is needlessly heat stresses your parts and EINSY.

Re: Good max temp for an enclosure?

temp in the enclosure is ~65 Celsius, is that too high for the printed parts or for the electronics? I don't want to accidentally kill my printer 😀

yikes, 65 is getting close to required enclosure temps for ultra-exotic filaments like peek or ultem. Check out all the mods NASA had to make on their taz to accomodate printing with chamber temps that high.
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20170000214.pdf

your power supply isn't long for this world at those temps unless you've already mounted it externally, and I'd suspect your steppers aren't far behind. pretty much all normal filaments can be printed without an enclosure these days except for possibly pure abs, and even then there are newer blends that work fine.

I print polycarbonate, petg, nylon, etc all in open air with no warping. If you want quiet, there are much better ways to do it.

Re: Good max temp for an enclosure?

The general thought seems to be that it is way too high, I will put in some vents and fans to cool everything down a bit, who knew that insulation foam is so good at holding in heat haha

Re: Good max temp for an enclosure?

Hi Nik,

Vents and fans will let out noise and probably cause drafts...
consider blowing air in, rather than out, and
consider using baffles to prevent direct drafts,
consider mixing hot air from the top of the chamber , with incomming air, in order to minimise differential temperatures within the cabinet.

regards Joan

Re: Good max temp for an enclosure?

Mine routine raises to 36-37 degrees celcius.

Re: Good max temp for an enclosure?

I think that 65 degrees Celsius is too high for the electronics inside the cabinet and for the type of filament that we are using.

This is my experience:

I built a cabinet for my MK3, based on the project described by JP

The main problem I had before building the cabinet, was that the printings made with ABS went wrong.

But, after building it, printing with ABS are perfect

For the printing parameters I use the ones that come by default in the Slic3r but deactivating the layer fan for the first two layers, and for the following I use 20% layer fan speed.

For lack of plexiglass, I left the back of the cabinet uncovered (at a distance of about 4 centimeters from the wall of the room), but the prints with ABS were perfect as well.

I measured the temperature inside the cabinet, and found that it did not rise more than 33 degrees Celsius, even when the temperature in the room was 26 degrees Celsius

What I want to say is that it is not necessary to incorporate fans into the cabinet. What you have to take care of is that inside the cabinet there are no abrupt changes in the air flow or sudden changes in temperature. If the back is left open, the heat is conveniently dispersed without forcing the air with fans, maintaining a suitable temperature for printing objects in ABS, and without the electronics being exposed to higher temperatures.

I decided, like the JP video, to place the power source outside the cabinet, and thus protect it from exposing it to the temperatures inside the cabinet.

I only experience this with ABS, but I think it applies to other types of materials that are sensitive to air flows and temperature changes

I hope this is helpful for someone

regards

RE: Good max temp for an enclosure?

@curtis-c2

Hi Curtis,

may I ask what nylon filament/settings you are using? I am having real bad warping....

RE: Good max temp for an enclosure?

As a reference point only, with a Prusa 3S in an IKEA Lack enclosure with 1/8" plexiglass on 4 sides, it gets up to almost 30C with a pretty much any bed temp over 30C. I print with bed temps up to 60C, and makes hardly any difference. No enclosure heaters.

So far working for me with PLA/PETG/TPU.