Dan's 3D printing
Winterproofing my 3D printer - part 1
Layer separation problem - was the resin too cold?I’ve been running my 3D printer for several months pretty much constantly and had got to the point where I felt confident getting reliable prints, or at least fixing and avoiding the common problems.
I was starting to print terrain to go with my Dweghom force, so I was repeating the same prints over and over, when suddenly they all started to fail like in the picture above. A layer fails to adhere to the model and instead sticks to the FEP. Eventually it starts sticking to the print again, but you end up with these large gaps.
I had actually seen this before when I first changed resin from the one supplied by the manufacturer with the printer, to Elegoo resin from Amazon. I solved that by increasing the cure time slightly.
The sudden failure to print corresponded to winter kicking in here in the UK and the temperature dropping. My printer is in an unheated garage and so is susceptible to changes in temperature.
A quick google search confirmed that this can be a problem. Cold resin not only cures slower but will also not flow as well in the resin vat.
My solution was to buy a 20W reptile heating mat from Amazon (https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08FXBT67D/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1). I had a pack of foam floor mats left over from when I put them down on my garage floor. I assembled these into a cube, placed the heater underneath the printer and then sealed it up. I also have a thermometer on the way to put in there, but it hasn’t arrived yet.
Total expenditure so far is £29.43.
I’ve got it warming up right now and will start printing the tree again later today.
Let’s see how it turns out.
Yeah, cold resin is a killer! I did something similiar last February when I left an overnight job printing and forgot to put the heater on in my workshop – the resin was thick like treacle by the morning and the print totally failed! (my one and only failure to date). I shoved a 12v heater onto a thermostat controlled relay (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Temperature-Control-Thermostat-Thermal-50-110%C2%B0/dp/B00NBT0Q10/ref=asc_df_B00NBT0Q10/) and soldered a 12v connector onto the printer’s motherboard. With the lid closed, it stays nice and toasty inside – at just 11W, the little heater module uses a fraction of the power of running a 2kw room… Read more »
Not exactly this model, but something similar: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07Y5FVR7M/ref=twister_B07Y5DM4NV
Total spend about a tenner.
If you’re not comfortable finding and taking a 12v tap off your printer motherboard, you can always just use a 12v power brick/adapter (ebay/amazon for about £8-£10).
I’m guessing the reptile heater mat has a thermostat built into it?
Nice idea!
The reptile heater doesn’t have a thermostat, but it does have a variable power supply. If it doesn’t work out setting up a thermostat and heater as you suggested will be my next step. Thanks for the links.