So heat is starting to become an issue in the garage, or rather the lack of heat is the issue (or partly to blame).
The lack of temperature control in the garage and the garage ability to plummet in temp to circa 5 deg C or lower means the 3d Printer gets more failed prints.
I had tee’d up my wife to allow the printer to come into the house.
But it does make a noise and my wife has an insane ability to hear noise…
I bought 3x LACK coffee tables from IKEA, oak effect, for the cost of £6 each, its an insane bargain and one I felt I needed to snap up.
The idea is to produce a cheap cabinet to house the printer and fit an aquarium thermostat, heater and cooling fan. I’m thinking to have the inside of the cabinet sitting in a stable 25Deg C.
Andyway I have screwed two tables together, tomorrow I buy some perspex and some plywood and some hinges, so I can finish off the cabinet.
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More photos to follow, along with details of what I buy and where in the UK i bought it ;)
Cheers
Andy
The Lack approach is commonly used by open frame printers like Prusa i3 but I would prefer something much smaller which doesn't enclose the whole printer to avoid heating up the electronics.
In your garage, this might be different if you really only want to keep the temperature around 25°C. Still, I imagine that heating up the whole enclosure takes quite a while at this size.
I started to design my own hood in FreeCAD some time ago, but got stuck due to several reasons.
The idea was/is to cut the panels from acrylic and print the connectors. I wanted to use e.g. the Hepa filter from the Up Box with a proper fan.
Couldn't decide on a specific fan yet (should be in the 100m³/h range but not too loud) and haven't ordered the Hepa filter, so I couldn't design the bracket.
Besides, I'm struggling a bit with the (still missing) lower attachment to the m200. I planned to use some kind of brackets with a rubber layer that keep the hood in place only by friction.
But yeah, then this project stalled because of other stuff.
Hi Deadbeef,
I hear what your saying, but I think its easier to enclose the printer than making a hood as it allowed me to use materials I had easy access to.
I have made the cabinet and the whole thing cost me £75, where as I reckon the acrylic cut and supplied would cost me that, and still not include temperature control (remember this is in a garage and its sub zero out side here).
Just my two pence worth, will list out what I bought and revise my costing later ;)
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A cabinet like yours is exactly what I plan to use when/if I move up to the loft, much like you garage there is no heating up there so I need to manage the temperature properly and not have small drafts seep in through the side panels.
You would only need to couple something like this with a computer fan or two and a 12v power supply to control the temperature. A HEPA filter is likely unnecessary if its out in the garage, the only thing I would worry about would be if it actually needed insulating to maintain a decent temperature!
Bare in mind there are a few reports of printer parts failing and it maybe possibly being attributed to an enclosure with the temp higher than it would regularly be with an open top and sides.