Room temperature

What affect does the room temperature have on the ABS prints and PLA prints ?

i have to turn on the A/C from time to time and it gets pretty cold
would that effect my prints ?

 

It can cause warping and delamination if your print gets too cold during the print. That's why people build enclosures for their printers, especially ABS

 

so i should avoid extreme cold temperatures in the room, or make an enclosure for the printer

ok, do i need a fan on the printed item ? or does ABS need to cool down by itself ?

when would i need a fan under the hotend ?

 

Thanks for the info

 

I had a print fail after going for almost 9 hours... because I opened the door for the dog to be able to go out and lay on the deck... it dropped ambient enough that the layers stopped adhearing and slipped... I knew it was my fault but I still, like for many other things, blame the dog.

 

I'm pretty concerned because I keep my printer in my garage so when it gets colder and we open the garage door to go to work or whatever it's probably going to break my prints... Really gotta figure out how to enclose it...

 

3D printers in industrial settings are in highly temperature controlled environments and also have enclosures for a completely sealed environment. It wouldn't be too difficult to have a knock together and apart box with a window of acrylic or something. The top shell of the printer is ornamental so you can ditch it completely, and go with something that fits just the size of the printer and it's full range of motion on the Y and Z axis. Yeah, I know, it's really X but the robo guys call the bed the Y axis for some reason... {shrug}

 

I guess I consider a garage a "workshop" for the hobbiest 3D printer. Putting a box together with a door and a window should be pretty simple... but if ambient is really cold, you ain't gonna be successful in printing I would highly suspect. I mean, maybe you should build a high enough skirt to protect from drafts and keep the temperature contained around the print... and create a pseudo enclosure on the print bed itself... but if it were me, I'd just build a box and stick the printer in it. There's a reason other 3D printers like the cupcake and makerbot are enclosed boxes. It'd have been nice if the top for the R3D would have been large enough to put acrylic windows on, but that as it currently stands isn't an option as the table would hit it.

 

Another option for a "knock down" enclosure, would be just a simple cardboard box... with the heated bed running (or maybe even just the hotend) you should be able to keep it warm enough in there to keep your print from peeling up even in cold ambient...

An interesting possibility are these clips:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:23111


You could have flat cardboard stored under the printer and the clips near by... if you ended up needing the enclosure, knock it together real quick like, do your print, and take it back apart all in a few minutes. Seal up the edges with some gaffer, painters, or duct tape, and yer good to go.