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Community Favorite Bed Heater - Installing SSR & PID Control Instructions

Discussion in 'Mods and Upgrades' started by Perry Genovese, Jan 20, 2017.

  1. daniel871

    daniel871 Well-Known Member

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    I've just been printing things and not worrying about it, but all of my prints are in the same material and I'm not really experimenting anymore...

    Guess its time to save up for another machine to play with.
     
  2. Jim Leoanrd

    Jim Leoanrd New Member

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    That would be nice! most of my settings are pretty good, but Im constantly swapping between ABS and TPU, then throw in some PLA and Nylon. Im trying to make it alot more seamless. I printed out several of the Quick release mod spring holders, and each one is tuned to the tension the materials run best at, then there is the hope of the geckotek bed helping my ABS woes, and simplifying things in general. So far so good!
     
  3. Jim Leoanrd

    Jim Leoanrd New Member

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  4. Jim Leoanrd

    Jim Leoanrd New Member

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    Got the 18v Power supply installed. Came out pretty clean. Only 2 visible screws from the front. Heats up from room temp to 100C+ in ~9 minutes.

    Voltage is maxed out on the unit at 18.01V. Under load its ~17.65V pulling 12-14A (246 watts) to get the heater up to temp. Little to no heat build up in the Power supply or Mosfet after a 12 hour ABS print @ 100C bed temp. I did drill a nice pattern of holes for the new power supply to vent out of, lined up with PS fan.

    My overall impression is its a very worth wile mod if you print a lot of ABS. The Geckotek HT build plate leaves a little to be desired in wear resistance. I have quite a bit of peeling from the coating after ~12 prints. The bed itself is great. Very flat, and is pretty evenly heated, a HUGE improvement over the stock bed and heater. I need to get my Y axis Jerk settings dialed in, as the heavier bed induces alot of jitter when doing fast infill jogging. Still havent changed the stock fuse. Im going to give a bit more overhead with a 7A fuse over the stock 5A to prevent an issue if the line voltage drops for some reason (though it shouldn't when connected to a UPS).

    20170625_010724.jpg 20170625_011410.jpg
     
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  5. OutsourcedGuru

    OutsourcedGuru Active Member

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    You might consider going from the 5A fast blow fuse (assuming here) to a 5A slow blow fuse.
     
  6. Jim Leoanrd

    Jim Leoanrd New Member

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    My testing tonight had the following results:

    All at 123.2V
    Printer Powered on = 0.38A
    Printer Powered and Extruder Heating = 0.85A
    Printer powered, Extruder & Bed Heating = 4.20A
    Printer powered, Extruder & Bed Maintaining = 0.80 - 3.30A
    Printer powered, Extruder & Bed Maintaining, Printing = 0.80 - 3.43A

    So as it sits now I will go ahead and leave the 5A Fast Acting fuse installed.

    Accel and Jerk Settings adjusted from Defaults to Toms frequently posted settings took out all the jitter from the Y axis (bed hopping).
     
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  7. OutsourcedGuru

    OutsourcedGuru Active Member

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    If anything prevents something movable from moving (like something blocking the bed), then the power consumption for that will go a little higher.
     
  8. Steve0

    Steve0 New Member

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    What about using one of those re-settable circuit breakers? This would offer you a bit of a delay but still provide catastrophic protection. And keep you at the 5 amp level.
     
  9. Jim Leoanrd

    Jim Leoanrd New Member

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    That would probably work very well. I have been printing with the same 5A fuse since it was set up, so over 5 months now without a single issue. Its about time to do a maintenance and inspection teardown. I noticed my Heat break to cooling fins connection was a bit loose last time I swapped nozzles, so Im sure I have some other places that could be tightened up again.
     
  10. BrooklynBay

    BrooklynBay Active Member

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    Could this18 volt set up work with a stock 12 volt extruder heating element & heat bed or will it shorten its life, and burn out during a long print?
     
  11. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    12v heaters run at 18v will certainly die sooner.
     
  12. Jim Leoanrd

    Jim Leoanrd New Member

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    My setup just heats the Bed with 18v. The stock Power supply is retained for all other power.

    Mark, are you refering to just Extruder heaters or bed heaters as well? I am just curious, as I thought it was not uncommon to run 12-24v through bed heaters without issue (on most heater types). From my research, the ones typically graded for 24v just had a lower resistance, from what I recall.
     
  13. BrooklynBay

    BrooklynBay Active Member

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    Are you running 18 volts through the stock heating bed or some other heating element which is not made by Robo? How much faster is the heating time with 18 volts compared to 12 volts?
     
  14. Jim Leoanrd

    Jim Leoanrd New Member

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    I am running a Geckotek Heated bed. It uses the Original Robo3D PCB heating element. It was ran off 12v originally. The current RoboR1-R1+ come wit ha different bed heating element.

    The Geckotek HEated BEd is aq 1/4" thick aluminum plate and takes a LONG tine to heat up on 12v, and wont hit 100C with the stock power supply powering it, 70C max I think. MY bed gets to temp pretty quick now. Look back in my other posts in this thread for more data on the 18v conversion and heat times etc.
     
  15. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Either with a caveat -- the extruder heater ratings are 12v the bed heaters... well, yea that depends :)
    The stock ones can be safely cranked up to 24v without any issues. Several others have done this.
    If heating time/power really is an issue I use the 110v heaters. Those just flat get to temperature ... in a hurry.
     
  16. BrooklynBay

    BrooklynBay Active Member

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    Mark, so you're saying that 24 volts will work on a stock bed heater without burning it out (even on long prints)? What would the current rating have to be? Would 10 Amps @ 24 Volts DC be sufficient?
     
  17. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    The stock bed heater is rated at (if I am generous) maybe 130w.
    Breaking out the math:

    P = I × V

    So a little algebra:

    I = P/V

    130/12 = 10.8amp (right at the fuse limit of 11amps the RAMPS uses)

    really though the heater is probably closer to 110w so there is more room than that.

    If we switch to 24 volts:

    130/24 = 5.4 amps :)

    So 10 amps is overkill with the stock bed at 24v
     
  18. BrooklynBay

    BrooklynBay Active Member

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    I looked at Amazon. They have 4 options for 24 volt power supplies: 2 A, 5 A, 10 A, and 15 A. 2 A is too low. 5 A is border line, and might not be sufficient. 8 A is probably the way to go.
     
  19. WheresWaldo

    WheresWaldo Volunteer ( ͠° ͟ʖ ͡°)
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    10A at 24V is probably sufficient for a replacement power supply. the heater cartridge and the bed heater really don't care what voltage you feed them as they are almost purely resistive loads. The R1 should work with no issues on 24V, the RAMPS board is designed to work with 12-24V power supplies, you would have to PID tune the extruder cartridge and the bed heater, but I am pretty sure it would be okay.
     
  20. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    I was just mathing out for you what the bed needs. If you add in the heater core and everything else you need maybe 300-350w total so you can work it out from there. 10 amps for everything is more than enough at 24v, but ... bear in mind the electronics (Arduino in particular) still wants 12v.
     

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