After a lot of site searching and googling, I can't find a good answer regarding ambient air temperatures for different materials...
my printer is enclosed in a cabinet:



with the heat bed, extruder, PSU and motors all giving off heat, it's going to warm up in there! At the top of the cabinet is an extractor fan which i'd like to use with a thermostat/ OSPID to control the ambient temperature.

what is the recommended temperature for PLA, and ABS? There's lots of discussion about nozzle temperatures and bed temperatures, but not as much about the temperature of the air, I was just wondering what suggestions you have.

cheers

I hear its about 80C for ABS - didn't think PLA needed much extra heat but someone else might know more.

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Waitaki 3D Printer

Out of curiosity, what is your internal cabinet temp., after running for about an hour?

after 2 hrs?

Ok thanks, I suppose that this is the wrong place to be asking as the reprap style printers are mostly open frame and I'm cheating with a commercial one

I haven't had it printing yet, that should happen this week when my first roll of filament arrives
Tom

T0mmm

I've just finished building an enclosure cabinet for my Mendelmax, but haven't done a print with it in the enclosure yet.

I had problems with abs warping and comming unstuck, and initially made a tent out of an old sheet, which fixed the problem, but was not a long term solution.

One issue I noticed was the motors, particularly the X motor get very got. So you will need to fan cool X and Y and possibly the Z motors.

Also, I'm not keeping the electronics, e.g the RAMPS inside the cabinet, I have made a separate chamber at the back to house them, and it will be open to the air.

One other thing, you will need to vent abs fumes. I'm intending to use a 1 inch conduit tube, and run a small fan continuously - however I've not built this yet.

Btw are u keeping the filament spool inside the cabinet. I'm intending to keep the filament outside at the back and feed in via a guide tube

Hello,

I think i'm lucky in that there's a built in gap between the chamber of my unit and where the electronics sit, so I think i'm ok there.

I ran my machine for a few hours last night and yes my extruder motor gets warm, I'll have a scavenge in the electrical bin for some fans to blow on it, or try turning the current down.. after all it doesn't do that much pushing really. T
he X and Y motors are huge for the amount of current going through them so they stayed cold. it might be a different story if i preheat the cabinet though so thanks

I'm going to put the spool outside the cabinet to stop it going gooey or creeping etc, maybe at the back of the printer but it might be a bit awkward to get at there..

we will see!
Tom

@metalmann

Ran my mendelmax in my enclosure for 50 mins and internal temperature went up by around 10 degrees, from approx 20 deg to 30 deg.

I was printing ABS, so bed temp was 110 and extruder 230 deg.

I'm doing any forced ventilation at the moment, (As I need to get a suitable fan and design and print a mount for it), but I do have a 25mm dia hole in the top where the conduit for the waste air will be vented.

It's best for all thermoplastics to be printed with chamber temperatures just below their glass transition temp (Tg), because all warping occurs when the plastic is being cooled from Tg to ambient temperatures. Tg of ABS is about 105C and Tg of PLA is about 60C. I have heard that once you get the chamber temp to about 80C, ABS warping is completely undetectable. Since PLA has such a low Tg, most poeple get away with printing it at room temp (usually about 22C), but if you have problems with warping, increasing the ambient temperature might help.

Eric

recently on one of my prints, basically a 12 inch helmet, It warped really badly, and actualy pulled the tape up off my bed. The problem i have with enclosing my machine is I feel like the extruder will start deforming. so now i have to switch to a bowden system in order to enclose my machine fully.

aduy

What is your extruder made of ? I'd have thought that most are made of ABS, so the chances of it starting to deform would not be that high unless you are adding additional heat to your enclosure.

My enclosure appears to operate at about 15 degrees above current ambient. i.e I've got it in an unheated room which is at about 15 deg C and inside the enclosure after 2 hours the temperature is steady at around 30 degrees C.

(Note about the photo. I've yet to add a extractor / vent pipe and I plan to have the filament behind the unit rather than on top. I also still a have not finished bolting the electronics to the back panel etc)

im trying to print in abs a rc flying wing, the peaces are very tall and warps in the middle, so much that almost crack it self, for a reprap style printers its hard to put a encolusre temperature of 80c, most common stepper mottors works fine up to 60C more than that and start to loosing torque, and also you need to low the amperage of the motors for avoding overheating, however a encolusre temp of 40 degress i think may help and putting some heatsinks on the steppers maybe could be a possible way, i build a printer like ultimaker, so the hotend dosent move in z direction, i am going to try to put a heatgun pointing to the middle distance between the bottom of the part and the nozzle

Are your objects still attached to the bed, or is the problem that they are not sticking.

You can also prevent warping by adding support material which you remove later. Most slicers have options to add support material, but I suspect in your case, you may have to incorporate the support material as part of your design

This is my enclosed machine

All the parts in the chamber are ABS or PETG, no motors in the chamber (except the z motor right at the bottom), no electronics. With the 250w heated bed at 120 degrees C the chamber holds at 60 deg C. This virtually eliminates ABS warp.

I printed a tray of ABS parts and one did not get a good first layer, normally in an open frame printer or my previous attempt at a chamber which only got to 45 deg C, I'd expect that part to curl up. But I left it run as the other parts got good first layers. Anyway the part that was poorly adhered to the bed did not warp. It wasn't perfect on the base but it was usable.

I'd be concerned that my Petg mechanicals might soften at 80 deg C but I can't see any need to go higher than 60 so far.

If I'm printing PLA unless it's a very long, thin part with high infill and very low contact area I'd take the top off. For PETG I'd never leave the top on.

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Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

I agree with DjDemonD, I do not think the chamber needs to be above 60C.

I print ABS with the chamber at 58 - 60C from just the bed heat, and have printed parts over 13" across and a foot tall without warping. I use a bit of cooling air through the hot end onto the top of the part. Others are using cooler chambers - just make sure there are no drafts.



Video

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My printer: Raptosaur - Large Format Delta - [www.paulwanamaker.wordpress.com]
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