3D Printer Enclosure

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Mad Inventor™
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I bought my lad a 3D printer at Christmas. Tbh he's flying with it. Learnt a number of new CAD packages etc. Up until recently he's only been printing in the material PLA, a more environmentally friendly material than "traditional" plastics. 

Wanting to print now in ABS it is very temperature sensitive and has a tendency to warp etc. Our early attempts failed. We decided therefore to build an enclosure. Many hobbyists base their enclosures on the IKEA LACK tables. £6 a pop, a couple make a nice enclosure with storage underneath. These were unavailable in the colour we wanted and those colours that were had a silly delivery date because of this Covid thing. The delivery costs too were more than two tables!

First attempted to make one out of an old fridge freezer! We abandoned that and put it back on the adjacent farm's scrap pile!



So it was off to the scrap wood collection! Some 3/4" ply site hoarding made the top and base and some random lengths were cut into 50x50 legs on the table saw:



The printer was used to make the interconnecting pieces:



Trial fitting the plastic parts:



Some paint:





And it all came together! Scored some 2mm plastic from a neighbour he'd had for secondary glazing. A bit brittle tbh but needs must!



Now ABS fumes are a tad noxious so need venting. On the back of the enclosure he's 3D printed a cowl with an old 120mm pc fan sandwiched between that and the rear ply panel:



This needs 12V at 170mA. All I have here close in terms of wall warts in the salvage boxes so far is a 12V 500mA. It's unregulated though, just 4 diodes on the secondary  as a bridge rectifier. Not even a smoothing capacitor in there! Anyone know if that'll be detrimental to a pc fan? Not sure how delicate these are.



At the mo just strapped to a PP3 to test it! 



Lastly, I used the old nail polish remover / bfo kitchen knife / hammer trick to split the wall wart case. I imagine solvent weld glue best for sticking it back together again?

Cheers

 
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try PETG. never had much sucess on mine with ABS, but ten its partly down to no enclosure so probabyl isnt being kept hot enough. ill eventually build an enclosure. one day

 
That's a nice job. I like creating things from junk. (That's why my garage is full of junk)

Regarding the computer fan, just check the voltage when running and put a resistor in if its over 12.

When are you taking orders for custom made parts?

 
@Onoff Do you want a 12V DC power supply sent to you, I have a couple of these spare, left over and never fitted from shop tagging systems. If so pm me your address and I will send it to you. They are decent enough wee units from what I remember.

55CD2593-3C89-4BFE-9982-9558996E526F.jpeg

 
@Onoff Do you want a 12V DC power supply sent to you, I have a couple of these spare, left over and never fitted from shop tagging systems. If so pm me your address and I will send it to you. They are decent enough wee units from what I remember.


That's very decent of you! Just realised however there are decent switching psus on the BT routers that I've got a few of kicking around. Just put a 12V 1A one on. Measured at a nice stable 12V off load. Soldered/heatshrunk that on just now:



Just got to print the "female" duct adapter to take some 4" foil duct up and out of the window plus a board or something to go over that.

 
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When are you taking orders for custom made parts?


Hmm...

We've done fridge/freezer handles, patio table repairs, Li-ion battery adapters, feeler gauges for my work, parts for obsolete Siemens switches again for work, pcb stand offs for a mates gate install, recessed mountings in woodgrain PLA for pir sensors up stairs for another mate. The list is pretty endless. Did some templates for a chap wanting to do a Brembo brake conversion on a Nissan S15 Silvia

Working at the mo on a tensioner arm for a Cebora/Snap On MIG welder where the part is unavailable. Experimenting with photogrammetry software/AI to generate 3D solid models from 2D images.

 
That's very decent of you! Just realised however there are decent switching psus on the BT routers that I've got a few of kicking around. Just put a 12V 1A one on. Measured at a nice stable 12V off load. Soldered/heatshrunk that on just now:

Just got to print the "female" duct adapter to take some 4" foil duct up and out of the window plus a board or something to go over that.
No problem, I shall return it to the vast mountain of “that might come in handy someday” pile😀

I am intrigued by this 3D printing.

 
We've done fridge/freezer handles, patio table repairs, Li-ion battery adapters, feeler gauges for my work, parts for obsolete Siemens switches again for work, pcb stand offs for a mates gate install, recessed mountings in woodgrain PLA for pir sensors up stairs for another mate. The list is pretty endless. Did some templates for a chap wanting to do a Brembo brake conversion on a Nissan S15 Silvia

Working at the mo on a tensioner arm for a Cebora/Snap On MIG welder where the part is unavailable. Experimenting with photogrammetry software/AI to generate 3D solid models from 2D images.


Looks like the start of a major industrial enterprise in a few years!

 
And now I want a 3D printer

how much are the consumables?


Paying about £20 - £30 per kilo roll. of filament. You can pay <£10 a roll but I've heard the cheap stuff can contain all the "lettuced" inc bits of metal etc. Have used Anycubic, RS Pro, Flash Forge & Steadytech filaments so far. That's all you have to buy unless components like belts and bearings wear.

Printer here is an Anycubic i3 Mega S from here:

https://www.anycubic.com/

It's basically a clone of the famous Prusa i3

It's an FDM printer. Fusion Deposit Modelling. The other common type is a "resin" printer. Resin printers are generally more accurate but can't print as big as FDM printers. The scene and technology is changing overnight of course!

Some stuff done here:

Adapters to use Makita batteries on an Einhell chainsaw:





Adapters to use Makita batteries on no name 18V stuff:








Fridge handles:




 
How long does the kilo roll last? How many battery adapters do you get? 


The ones for the chainsaw, so Makita batteries to Einhell weighed about 62g 'ish each but the printing weight might be higher if you include supports. for overhangs so 80/90g all in

The Makita battery to no name 18V adapters were about 90g each plus supports.

All the adapters were printed around 20% infill. Not solid, pretty much a thick "skin" outer, then "honeycomb" / "criss cross" inner structure. Where screws pass through, countersunks etc its made denser for strength.

Edit: Say <£2 per adapter assuming you shop around for filament and get it for around £20 per reel.

 
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Great tutorial, what programs do you need for 3D printer? Any 3D design type or is it specific.  


You can download other peoples designs from places like:

https://www.yeggi.com/

&

https://www.thingiverse.com/

Most are free and open source. Some you pay for.

You generally download the .STL files which are "mesh" files. 

A free "slicer" program such as Cura is used to in effect turn the .STL into G code that the printer will accept. It's a bit tricky sometimes to modify .STL files (note not impossible). Better is if you can get the "step", .STP files too. Cura is used to set printing speed, layer height, bed and extruder (aka the "hot end") temperatures along with adding supports for prints with overhangs etc.

You can of course draw up your own stuff in pretty much any 3D CAD package and export as an STL file. I use full AutoCAD. My lad uses Fusion 360 (free). Both made by Autodesk but like chalk and cheese imo! 

Helps if you can 3D model of course...

FreeCAD is another. 

We use our own designs, other people's off the above sites or merge our own with others.

Stick your Cura processed file on an SD card, whack it in the printer and hit print pretty much. 

Our printer, the Anycubic i3 Mega S takes minimal assembly and after levelling the bed (absolutely critical step) you can be printing "benchies" within minutes of setting up. Benchies are like the standard prints everyone does first off.

 
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