Acrylic Enclosure in Cold Michigan Garage

Hello Everyone,

I've pulled of ton of useful information from this forum, but now I have a question that hasn't been answered.

I created an acrylic enclosure for my Robo similar to Mike's (Thanks for the inspiration!), so that I could move my printer from my office to my garage. I do a lot of woodworking so originally i was thinking "Hey i have a heated bed, i wont have any issues as long as the saw dust stays out!". Well, not only was I wrong about that general assumption, but I was grossly appalled by the curling and crap prints I was getting. I ended up adding Reflectix (sp?) lining to the whole inner robo assembly, and lining all of the acrylic walls inside and can now successfully keep ambient temperature in the enclosure at 23-26c via passive heating when the heated bed is set to 80c (PETg). So, that seems to work great. I have yet to try with ABS, but i dont think smaller prints will be a problem. I'd eventually like to have an active heated enclosure, but will be changing over to a bowden setup to get my stepper out of the enclosed and heated area.

My question is, however, is due to the fact that I did not take into account room for my spool of filament. It currently is attached to the outside of the case, in the frigid 30f days and even colder nights here in Michigan right now. I have noticed my prints will once in a while develop a stringy, large booger that get deposited usually on a vertical surface of a print. I dont know if this is due to the cold filament on the spool which is not in the enclosure? or if it could be something different... Anyone have any input?

Also, i ended up flipping the power supply over as the outlet of the PSU fan used to point directly into the enclosure, so now it pushes air out the bottom (yes i have my printer on risers). With that cold of air, it was a bad idea to be pumping it into the case. Anyone else done this and seen any issues?

Thanks!

 

I've seen folks flip their PSU with no issues. Actually has helped with noise I hear. As long as you have the riser feet, your good.