Heated Build Chamber - Problems

Hello,

Lately, We have been building a Heated Build Chamber.

We use all ABS Printed parts for the printer.

Considering the chamber to be at around 70 degrees centigrade,

--> Is there a chance of damage to the ABS printed parts of the printer ? If Yes, How do we prevent it ?

--> Will there be a problem with the GT2 Belt, which moves the x axis ? Will it slag or something because of the heat ?

-->Water Cooling of Extruder Stepper Motor has been suggested on a few other posts, Is there some other method to it ?
May be cooling with a fan or something else. If yes, how effective is that ?

Experienced in the area, Please Help !

Thanks in advance
Bharadwaj !

I built a very simple heated chamber with a low cost desktop heater inside. It got to around 80c. After about a year I did notice that bearing holders (ABS and my extruder mounting plate (also ABS) where warping slightly. I was able to print new ones and replace the old ones with no problem. Will I still use heat? Yes, it's the only way to prevent tall thin objects from warping and cracking using ABS. I don't use it on short items or items with thick walls. I just consider this a small cost of maintaining my machine, probably cost me less than $10 to print the new ones and if I have to do that once a year, no big deal.

Belts were not affected. And everything else seems to still work just fine after thousands of prints.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2014 06:10PM by tmorris9.

tmorris9, how you cool steppers / extruder cold-end?
do you still need hotbed when using heated chamber?
how are you controling chamber themperature (on level of hardware/firmware)?

i'm thinking of building one too

I don't cool the steppers, it's not hot enough to damage them. I use ABS and a Buda schnozzle and have no issues with it. Yes, you still need to have a heated build platform if printing with ABS.

As far as controller the temp, it's a small heater and fairly large chamber, while the front door is just a towel that I drop in place and it could be opened slightly to control the heat I find that it totally closed the little Lasko desk heater just barely keeps it up to temperature so no need for controls.

thank you for sharing!

though 80c sounds like a lot even for steppers