Actively heated chamber

Does anybody tried to add some heating to the chamber? It would be great to have higher temperature for some materials like PA-CF.

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I just run the bed heater for a while before printing. It’s a fairly decent chamber heater.

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Yes. I do it too (and hotend on 180 Celsius). But the temperature does not go higher than 45-50C. For PA is it not enough because of warping.

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I don’t see that a separate heater will help. I have printed PA in the X1C successfully, and my environment is on the cool side. Perhaps some insulation or an insulating enclosure will help you?

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Some insulation definitelly can help. But active heating is much easier way to get higher temperature in the chamber. PA-CF model with thin walls can be printed easily, but thick walls or massive model is problem.

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Bambu states max chamber temp is 50C. Beyond that I imagine you accelerate wear on belts and motors. I think the fan kicks on automatically at 50C to keep it there.

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It’s the electronics that will have a hard time if the chamber gets too hot. I’m not aware that the chamber fan has a temperature control. I’ve successfully printed Nylon with a chamber temp of around 35C.

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Yes I know. But I think that something about 60C can be OK. Of course the temperature has to be controlled.
In my opinion, the “printability” of the filament hardly depends on the producer. Some PA is quite good, but other is not.

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Take your wife’s hairdryer and carefully blow some hot air in. Dont let it exceed 50 C and don’t blow directly on anything.

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There are a lot of open spaces where the air inside the chamber escapes, the front door, open holes in the back panel and open spaces on the bottom of the chamber

I guarantee you if you take the time to close off those air gaps with something like foam tape that your chamber temps will reach temp quicker, maintain temp better and reach above the recommended chamber temp

Use caution though, too high of a chamber temp can have a negative affect on components inside the chamber like the board on the extruder, possible heat creep, and belt wear to name a few

I personally agree that an active heater for the chamber temp would be a great idea but the caveat would be my previous line about excessive heat on the internal components if the chamber temp gets too high

The most beneficial aspect of an actively heated chamber would be time saving because the bed is capable of heating the chamber, just very slowly :snail:

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For me is not problem to make controlled active heater. I understand, that the temperature can not be for example 90C because of electronics and other components inside the X1C chamber. Do you have some experiences how high can we go? Is it 60C or even 70C. For some engineering materials every Celsius step is good.

Part life is a concern, but there is another problem that almost nobody mentions. If you look in the hotend you will see it has two parts, the “cool” side and the hot side. So guess what happens to the cool side when the chamber air is heated? And why put that fan on the “cool” side? You asking for trouble while playing 3D printer designer. Printers with heated interiors often have other ways to cool the heatbreak, like liquid cooling. Might explain why consumer 3D printers don’t have active heaters.

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In a previous job we heated our electronics device - a piece of networking gear - to 100ºC in an oven for testing, and it remained working. So, most likely the electronics can handle it, but there’s other concerns, such as mechanics and lubrication.

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Hi guys! I do not own a Bambu yet, but I work with high temp filaments, such as PC, PA and else (withoutCF or GF because there are no resellers in Argentina unfortunately), and those filaments, not for small parts, but for medium or large ones, need a heated chamber. At least 60C. Thr problem with hot air going through the cold end (heatsink) is when you have a material that has a low Tg, and that evolves to a heat creep situation. But with HT filaments, the Tg is higher than the heated chamber temperature, so you will not experiencie heat creep. The main issue is heat over plastics, lubrication and belts. I built my own machines with electric resistances inside, and controlling them with marlin. But everything is built with ABS, insulated and protected from heat.

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This never made any sense to me. Why not build an insulated chamber inside the building space. Keep all the belts, motors, electronics outside of this inner chamber.

We will have to be a bit cleaver about the the top it could be two sets of bellows. One with a gap in the x-axis and one with a gap in the y-axis. The air gap between them could provide some insulation.

Just a thought.

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Where do you see they stated 50? I see on the main page on the website they state 60


I’ve also got mine up to 63 as of yet, inside a zippered cheap enclosure with aluminum reflective walls. The toolhead fan is the weak point though at .06 or .6 CFM. At 63 it led to heat creep and the polycarbonate that was loaded jammed. *edit: I pinpointed the jam to the AMS having weak motors. If I put it on the back spool it was ok.

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it was 50c at one time. maybe they update temps. belts are only rated for 50C though, i think 60c halfs the service life.

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Where did you see it halves the service life of the belt?

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You dont need a heated chamber for PA CF, hell you dont even need a heated bed.

Get a G10 or FR4 bed, as thick as you can get in there and you will be fine with a layer of elmers glue.

Markforged, probably the leaders in PACF have niether a heated chamber or heated bed, they just selected the right material for the bed, and in the past I have done this on an open air prusa with very good results

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abs is much cheaper and impact resistant than PA CF, but it really need a 60°C chamber to be printed well (with no warping and godd layer adhesion)