jitsbuild-thermal-enclosure [Bukobot 3D Printer Instructions & Docs]

====== jit's thermal enclosure ======

If you sometimes have problems printing things, and aren't sure why things aren't working as well as they were last week, it's time to start eliminating variables.  But if you're darn sure that you're doing everything exactly the same, perhaps the problem is coming from room temperature.

It can vary a lot, even in a supposedly thermostatically controlled room.  Winds outside might force drafts in to torment your Bukobot.

If you want to eliminate this variable, you can build a temperature-controlled enclosure for your Bukobot.  It's not hard, or particularly expensive.

Materials used:

  * (4) Tri-Fold Foam Display Board, for the walls (mine were made by Elmer's, their part # Z90080)
  * (3) half-inch thick foamcore board, 20 x 30 inch, for the roof
  * (1) terrarium heater, thermostatically controlled
  * (1) length of plastic tube, several feet long, for feeding in filament from outside the enclosure
  * (1) length of thin rope, long enough to reach around the enclosure and hold it together

The terrarium heater was found online.  The 150 watt ceramic heating element, wire cage for same, and thermostat were sold separately.  There is no need for a fancy digital thermostat;  the least expensive analog version (with remote probe) works fine.

The foam core board used for the walls and ceiling insulate very well, and reflect infrared radiation efficiently.  They were all found at a local craft store.

When first turned on, the heater reached equilibrium very quickly, and then used very little electricity.  The thermostat has an LED that tells you when it's drawing current; its duty cycle was well below 10% even on a cold day, so the average draw was less then 15 watts.

A small handheld infrared thermomoter was used to measure the temperature inside the enclosure.  The thermostat was adjusted until the temperature was 27C (about 80F) and the enclosure maintained that temperature very well, even when the front of the enclosure was left open so the printer could be watched.

The construction is left to the reader's imagination.


//[[jitsbuild|Back to jit's build]].//

//The contents of this page may be re-used under any of the following licenses:  The [[http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/|Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (CC BY-SA 3.0)]], or the [[http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html|GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL, version 1.2 or later)]].  Nothing on any of these pages is there to tell you what to do, only what other people have already done.//
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