How cold can the room temperature get before it is a bad idea to print with PLA?

My Mendel kit should be arriving today, and I intend to keep it in my garage, which is not heated. Since it is below freezing right now, and will likely stay there until sometime in March, I'd like to know what is a minimum temperature for printing PLA?

I'll have a heated print bed, and if I need to, I can also build a moderately sized box around it with a small space heater periodically blowing air into it.

... my guess is - below 10degC you'll receive severe problems when not housing the printer in a heated box ...

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Viktor
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My Mendel Max is in my unheated garage, I printed some parts the other day with the temperature in the room at < 5C, it was cold enough I had to put my hand on the hotend to heat the thermister enough for Marlin to stop complaining.
They printed fine, no real additional warping, sure would probably be better to print in a warmer environment, but I didn't want to have to deal with moving the printer.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/13/2012 12:45PM by Polygonhell.

Polygonhell Wrote:
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> ... I printed
> some parts the other day with the temperature in
> the room at < 5C,...

I have Got to do more PLA printing.

Need my Basement above 73f/24c to keep the Big ABS prints on the bed.

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Komb'
Glankonian Protoforms

You could stick the entire printer inside a box,

I used to have my printer in the garage, it was probably sub 5C in there. My hot-end took an age to get to temperature but it did print. The parts came out a little weak, but this could have been due to other causes.

Comparing 190C Pla to 20C in my room and 5C in the garage, it's not a massively increased temperature difference. I think it would need to be really cold to be completely unable to print.

Hey PeteD

This is a fascinating question. Surely you can modify any reprap to work in the freezing cold with a little extra insulation. However, many repraps are powered just barely enough to reach 100C on the bed and 250C at the nozzle at room temp. Since you will be 40 degrees C cool, one has to anticipate max bed temps of 60C and nozzle temps of 210C. Note that because you will be firing up the bed more, you may actually loose current to the nozzle, making it harder to keep it hot. Both of these temps are just barely within the range needed to print, but I'd like some extra safety buffer for you. To get this, you'll have to insulate the heated bed with fiberglass sheeting, fiberglass insulation, and similar products.

I found that around 12 degrees C ambient prints will start to warp, fail and generally be of a lower print quality. At 8 degrees C, I could not print a plate of parts at all with some colour PLA's, even individual parts were tricky.

I don't print below 15 degrees C now.

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[richrap.blogspot.com]

Hi all,
I did a long print the other day when the temp was at the other end of the scale. We had a day of 38-39 degrees C and I thought it would be a good test for the machine and especially extruder. It worked flawlessly except that smaller skinnier parts stayed a bit too hot/soft. Ramps and the rest worked for 6hrs non stop without issues. I think the machine coped better than I did, it was hot.
ABS with heated bed.

Regards
Jan

You might want to rethink the whole thing long term not because of temps but because of the humidity. If your in an un 'conditioned' environment like a garage or basement I think your biggest potential problem long term is going to be your PLA absorbing humidity and becoming difficult to work with.

Thanks for replying everyone! I guess I'll have to run some RT experiments once I get my Mendel assembled. I'll post my results when I have them.

@ a shorething

I live in essentially a cold desert. I'm not too worried about moisture being a major issue, so long as I keep my fillaments in sealed containers when not in use.

a_shorething Wrote:
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> You might want to rethink the whole thing long
> term not because of temps but because of the
> humidity. If your in an un 'conditioned'
> environment like a garage or basement I think your
> biggest potential problem long term is going to be
> your PLA absorbing humidity and becoming difficult
> to work with.

Condensation is really only an issue with rapid temperature change.
Either heating a cold garage too quickly.
Or if there is a significant difference between inside and outside temperatures, and you open the garage door.
Outside of that it's down to the actual environmental humidity.
I live in the PNW, where it rains pretty much continually for 6 months of the year, and I usually go through plastic long before it shows adverse effects from the moisture it's absorbing.
FWIW I don't store my unused plastic in the garage, but I do leave whatever roll I'm printing with in there.

I have been doing some printing in my garage here in washington, probably in the 0-10C range and haven't had any issue I associate with cold. I think the cold may help to cool the shaft above the hot zone and keep PLA from binding. Then again I have a 100W cartridge heater on my old suped up cupcake I haven't bothered much with ABS so can't speak to that.

I cover the bottm and the sides of my mendlel with a big towel, making it sort of a roof-less heated chamber. The bed makes enough warm to feel it when i put my hand or face above it. Fairly good solution, esp for big prints. Just take care that it doesnt soften the filament too much to get it stuck inside the extruder.