Community Favorite Mike Kelly's RoBo3D Enclosure

@ Mike Kelly - is this really intended as a safety enclosure and not as a heated chamber?

Any stories of measurable print quality improvement? internal temp rise?

I am guessing we'd want about 60C (with aux heater and PID) to start seeing some stress reduction in ABS printed parts.

Wondering how hot we can get the ROBO case and carriage parts before things start to degrade.

 

Well I can't encourage users to make a heated build enclosure because of some company and their patents. But if it does increase temperature then far be it for me to tell you to stop.

I've noticed a 30c increase in temp depending on ambient. It's greatly improved print quality, especially in my cold garage.

I do plan on integrating external heat and can let you now how that goes. Stop by my place and help me set it up!

The max enclosure temp is around 80c which is mostly limited by the stepper motors. Those will require liquid cooling above that.

 

Sorry for hijacking this thread. It is a load off my mind knowing the sensitive parts of my Robo3D are protected inside of a safety enclosure.
There was a post I read a while back about some company's patents, but as I remember, the teachings were broad, but he specific claims were not that overly restrictive and particularly directed at Cartesian printers, which would tend to exclude deltas.

Matt-
Not ABS (why?) - then doing mostly PLA and Nylon then? Greatly appreciate the observations: 80C target and 35-40C huge improvement. Maybe I have not been looking in the right places on the web, but I could never find real recommendations. I wrestle with how much to keep tweaking the Robo3D, trying to make it into something it was never intended to be. Flip side, the base plate and vertical Z supports have been changed to aluminum, and I have linear ball slides on the Y, so how much is left to convert to Nylon or Metal? Could start thinking about something big enough to print a boat. Interesting he did not use ball lead screws.
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Mike-
Keep me up to speed on your De-iceing/window defogger attachment for the safety enclosure. Absolute must for winter time safe printing. I'll have to stop by if I have some time at the end of year holidays. 30C over ambient. Got it. Time for some experiments.

Water Cooling -
I saw the new Cyclops hot end. Turns out I was in the process of drawing something similar, but was going to bite the bullet and go to water cooling. That air cooled heat sink and fan just take up too much room. Thinking about using silicone model airplane fuel hoses for the water feeds, so an extra cooling jacket around the steppers is no biggie. Why stop at two filaments?

Test Case-
Thin walls seem to be something of a problem. I can get this test part to print fine but it is really easy to crack/separate the layers. Already up to 245C ABS. At the same time, there is a huge amount of stress built in as you can see the part splits open after it is manually cracked apart. If this was printed in a safety enclosure would it help splitting? STL file attached if anybody wants to try it. 0.2mm LH. section is 1.6mm and is being printed as (4) 0.4mm wide filaments.

 

Yeah right now I'm just trying to decide how to add heat. I have a small ceramic heater that i'm thinking of using ducting with a hole cut in the side. I've got a bang bang controller for it as well.

The water cooling is a pretty awesome mod, but it seems quite arduous. You can check out this guys awesome mod for inspiration and a heatsink for stepper motors: http://forum.e3d-online.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=66

That part will absolutely print better in a heated enclosure. Keeping the temperature gradient more even will mitigate the internal stresses. I didn't need to use my enclosure over the summer because my garage was so warm, but in the winter even PLA warps without an enclosure.

 

Matt - I've noted HUGE differences in the amount of ABS out gassing from brand to brand. I still have some ROBO filament from the original KS time that I don't like using even in the summer with the windows open because of the fumes. ToyBuilderLabs ABS is a higher temp w/ different formulation. Really needs an all metal hot end, but there are no noticeable fumes even at 245C. Of course it is the gases that have no odor that will get you. Have a sample of your ABS that I need to dig out an try. Saw some posts about making an active charcoal filter using bulk charcoal from Am_z_n.

Mike- It would be interesting to start a thread about incrementally temperature hardening the ROBO 3D as an alternative to a Kayak printer. Ingenious link for water cooling, but I'd probably start fresh because the size and surface area required for a water jacket is a fraction of what is required for air cooling. PLA winter warping data point noted; what was the ambient? Keep us posted on your ceramic heater duct thinking....

 

Ah. Found it. Red colorFabb. I'll give it a shot!

Edit - Actually doesn't say exactly what it is "PLA/PHA and XT amorphous polymer filament". But it is Red. "Prints with the ease of PLA with the benefits of enhanced toughness and elongation."

 

If you are try to heat the enclosure for ABS be cautious with any type of heater that blows air because that can hurt a 3d print. I haven't done it for my R1 yet but on some of my other printers I've used a lizard tank heating pad or heat light bulb from my local pet store. It's about as simple as you can get. Low watt(4w) pads bring the temp up about 10 degrees while heat lamps can bring it up much higher. I've found in other printers that when I get the air temp the same as the HBP then I never have any problems with ABS.

 

I guess I'm confused how hot air would hurt a print. Care to elaborate so I can get a better idea?

 

It's just convective heating instead of conduction or radiation. If the air is higher temperature than the part it would more quickly cause it to equilibrate reducing thermal stresses.

I mean all heated enclosures that I know of use convective heating, just doesn't make thermal sense to use anything else.

 

The problem is in the heat difference with the air flow. If you are blowing heat on the front of a printed cube then the side most directly in the path of the air flow gets hot and then the edges get hotter because they are thinner then as the air moves past the side it creates a void behind the current and now you have a cold spot. Now convection could work as long and the air is relatively stable and evenly heating everything. so baffling or multi-venting could help the problem but a method like conduction or radiation can help avoid hot/cold spots all together which is the main reason ABS splits (when it shrinks at different rates) So if you used a heat lamp and directed it on the print and not bounce or diffuse it then you would have a similar problem. Basically you want the air to stationary but warm around the print. Unless I'm printing really, REALLY big I find just enclosing the unit without air moving around the print helps solve most of my problems. I only turn on heat when I want something huge.

 

I can see what you're getting it, though that sounds like more of a problem with air channeling than it is about convective heating.

In my vision I want an inlet line and a return line running to the heater in a closed loop. I'd have the hot air blow in the enclosure from the bottom back then pull the air through from the bottom front. This should create an air channel going over the top of the print and back down, where I envision an eddy current forming in the build zone allowing it to maintain a steadier temperature where it's needed most.

 

So, these were slightly older prints of Mike's LCD "offset" enclosure (I just never shared them before).

Mike, I noticed you had "v3" of the Cover piece - what were the changes since the original?

And BTW, on my unit, the potentiometer (main rotating control know) was soldered slightly to the side, so the knob doesn't match the corresponding hole for it and I had to make it wider... Not specific to this cover, as I had the same issue with the previous LCD enclosure from tonysctech.

 

Hmm last revision I made was pushing the screws a little further out because it was interfering with the LCD. looking at your screen it seems to be the latest revision. If it fit then good otherwise might be worth a new one


I have been working on a replacement base that's a little beefier.