lowest power printer September 13, 2018 07:48PM |
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Re: lowest power printer September 13, 2018 08:23PM |
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Re: lowest power printer September 13, 2018 09:39PM |
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Re: lowest power printer September 14, 2018 12:14AM |
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Re: lowest power printer September 14, 2018 10:40AM |
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Re: lowest power printer September 15, 2018 03:08AM |
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Re: lowest power printer September 15, 2018 11:57PM |
Registered: 5 years ago Posts: 5 |
What type of hotend is best? do the j-head really use ceramics instead of metal to prevent heat from rising out of the nozzel? If so, does this improve efficiency significantly?Quote
o_lampe
You've already listed a few valid things.
The hotend sock will help a lot. Also take care, the part cooling fan doesn't blow on the nozzle.
What pitch, 4mm/turn 2mm/turn? 1mm? Why do people use anything but fine pitch for these since z axis movement doesn't need to be fast? Is this only to facilitate:Quote
Small stepper motors, like 0.4A NEMA 17. It works, as long as the extruder motor is strong enough ( geared 3:1 or 5:1 ) you can print at 50mm/s reliable.
It's all about finding a reasonable acceleration for them and you can use travel speeds of 120-150mm/s.
Switch off Z-motors. If you have fine pitched leadscrews and set the driver to fullsteps or 1/4-steps, they won't loose position, when switched off.
?Quote
Lift Z during retraction is forbidden then.
There is a battery, but it's limited. I might want to print all day, it sure seems like printing can take a long time, and the sun isn't always out.Quote
Switching off XY-motors won't help a lot, only during heatup-time.
I'd propose using a backup battery permanently connected to the solar module. ( You won't print everyday from dusk till dawn, right? )
I have a solar furnace I use for cooking, distilling sea water, and sewage treatment made from about 400 small mirrors glued in a satellite dish.Quote
Why not use a solar collector to heat the bed? A solar powered waterpump pumps hot fluid through a maze below the bed. PWM control regulates the temp.
I don't think this analogy extends to 3d printing perfectly.Quote
SupraGuy
Joking aside...
Power conservation costs money. In order to make this the most efficient possible, you are going to have to trade off, and some things, the only reasonable trade-off is money.
If you do this with small motors and low currents, it won't be fast. That means that you need to keep your hot end hot for longer for a given print. Like a car doesn't get its best fuel economy at very low speeds, even though its hourly fuel consumption is low, we care about how FAR the car goes for the fuel, not how long.
I guess ultimately all the plastic has to get melted which takes a certain amount of heat, and the faster it can do this, probably the less wasted heat. This would mean like you suggest smaller motors could be worse. But larger motors also weigh more and so..Quote
Small motors don't always get the best economy. Going back to cars, I built my Supra engine for ~450 horsepower, and it gets better fuel economy than my winter beater Honda, because it doesn't waste the power that it's got. In your printer, stepper motors do a job, and sizing them properly to do that job quickly and efficiently is going to save you time pumping 35-50W into the hot end heater.
It makes sense, but I believe the parts produced are not useful outdoors since they are not UV tolerant?Quote
A UV/LCD resin printer is probably the most power efficient, if for no other reason than the lack of a bunch of heaters.
I don't see any alternatives.Quote
In order to make an FDM printer more efficient, you're going to need to make a lot of compromises, but I would say to first consider that your FIRST concern should be reliability. Most of us can fail a few first layers for a print, or can have prints de-laminate and fail, and we just make another one. each time that happens for you, every watt-hour that print cost you is gone, and you get nothing for it.
Printing by melting thermoplastic filament doesn't seem to be that reliable a technology to me.
It may be possible to use propane or some other type of fuel, but it would be very wasteful and bad thing to do.Quote
As far as choice of filament, I'm personally working on a design for a propane heat chamber (For a vacuum forming table to heat plastic sheet to forming temperatures) which would be arduino controlled. It's basically a small gas oven, but I'd put good odds that I could use the same control mechanism to keep a small metal plate (and/or heated chamber) at temperature. For this, it would then become which plastic has the lowest specific heat.
Re: lowest power printer September 16, 2018 02:12AM |
Registered: 8 years ago Posts: 5,232 |
Quote
retrosenator
What type of hotend is best? do the j-head really use ceramics instead of metal to prevent heat from rising out of the nozzel? If so, does this improve efficiency significantly?Quote
o_lampe
The hotend sock will help a lot. Also take care, the part cooling fan doesn't blow on the nozzle.
I haven't used j-heads, but AFAIK they use a high temp plastic instead of E3Ds heatbrake and heatsink. They say, it works without hotend cooling fan
can I use 2 or 3 socks? Not neccessary
What pitch, 4mm/turn 2mm/turn? 1mm? Why do people use anything but fine pitch for these since z axis movement doesn't need to be fast? Is this only to facilitate:Quote
If you have fine pitched leadscrews and set the driver to fullsteps or 1/4-steps, they won't loose position, when switched off.
?Quote
Lift Z during retraction is forbidden then.
Many printers use M5 leadscrews with 0.8mm pitch. But IMHO 1.5-2mm pitch will also work. Try to use only one stepper with belt and pulleys to drive Z.
I have a solar furnace I use for cooking, distilling sea water, and sewage treatment made from about 400 small mirrors glued in a satellite dish.
This gets hot enough to make stainless steel turn blue. It is significant heat source, approximately equivalent to a stove but the heat is concentrated to an even smaller area of 10-15 sq cm. Piping this heat needs to be some kind of fluid other than water.. molten salt? Not sure how I can pipe it to the printer without losing significant heat..
You'd need a thermal transfer device right at the furnace, like a radiator. Then you can transport the low temp fluid without too many losses. You could also cover the mirror partially or aim it slightly away from the sun to reduce energy.
Another idea: The backside of the dish sure gets pretty hot too, maybe you can get your hot fluid from there?
Re: lowest power printer September 16, 2018 03:08AM |
Admin Registered: 13 years ago Posts: 7,000 |
What pitch, 4mm/turn 2mm/turn? 1mm? Why do people use anything but fine pitch for these since z axis movement doesn't need to be fast? Is this only to