I’m trying to get some of the smells from printing ASA out of the room I’m printing in. Most of the time it’s easy enough to open the window and close the door while printing, but…
Question, If I close up the opening from the poop shoot, will the fumes be contained in the printer enough to keep the smell down, or is this just a waste of time? Anyone here use something similar?
Exhaust system isn’t really what I want to do. Personal hobby use and occasional small ASA prints.
I’m currently making a small magnetic cover that will hold a small amount of poop. Maybe 10 turds and I’d be done with project. Then I could remove this and use regular poop bucket with opening opened while printing non ASA stuff.
There is a really cool model on MakerWorld with a covered poop chute. The bottom is open, but I think it would work fine for you. I will attach the model shortly when I find it.
You mentioned no exhaust systems, and I completely get that, they are a lot to deal with and expensive. However, I would recommend an air filtration system. I mainly print PLA and PETG and a little bit of TPU, so there are fumes, but nothing like ASA. I just bought a two pack of air purifiers at Costco Wholesale, and they work WONDERS. If you can, definitely check them out.
I use a simple magnetic cover that is not meant to hold any purge. Usually when I print in ASA it is only one color anyways. It is enough to hold the 3 little drops.
Maybe not what you asked, but … put the printer in a grow tent (or purpose built printer tent) and pipe the tent’s exhaust outside … it’s the only thing that actually 100% works.
None of these air filters or flaps do a proper job compared to an enclosure.
The large opening in the back was offending my sense of efficiency with heated chamber printing, so I wanted to cover it also. It occurred to me that potentially the designers noticed the big hole in the back and I was going to write BL to ask about covering that opening. But then I found this page: Bambu Lab Mods to be cautious about | Bambu Lab Wiki
And the chute cover is first on the list.
I was curious about the smell though, so I tried a quick test on an ASA print with just a cardboard cover over the hole. No difference. There are so many openings in the printer… seems like a lost cause to contain smells. When it’s venting, most, if not all, of those openings are going to be sucking air anyway… and ofc if it was air tight then it would need some kind of intake anyway.
My printer room isn’t easily vented. I hung a nice size air purifier with carbon filters and a negative ion generator right above the printer. I can still smell ASA while it’s printing, but soon after the air is clean again. The ions make it smell like after a fresh rain (sorta). Future may include a vented range hood/fan to quickly exhaust the air from the room.
Cheers,
-Max
PS. I had a non-ionizing filter in there first, but it wasn’t nearly as effective. Those ions work goodly.
I would still suggest a ventilation setup if ASA is going to be a routine filament you’ll use. Honestly, any filament really. I’m a firm believer of strong filtration (not always cost efficient) or ventilation no matter what filament you’re printing.
My stand-alone Laser Engraver is in a fully contained “tent” with an intake and exhaust system. The laser can create some acrid odors when burning things.
A cover alone will not do much to dampen the off-gassing from ASA and ABS, you will need to install an additional carbon air filter. The built-in air filter has a pretty poor airflow & filter design IMO.
I installed the H2D/H2S Aux Filter XL by KYZ Design (works great in H2C) for filtration, and the H2D / H2S / H2C Poop Chute by Maxx Design (with the lid). With both of those additions, the smell is gone as near as I can tell and the VOC & PM2.5 air sensor I have doesn’t pick up anything near the printer when doing multi-hour ASA prints.
It’s not perfectly air sealed. There are some gaps that could be reduced or blocked with foam tape. I have not bothered with it as the improved carbon filter seems to take care of enough of the nasty stuff.
The printer is not air tight and Id be very cautious about dampening down the smell enough to give you a false sense of security. Im not a chemical engineer, but pretty sure there are different gases which come off the melted ASA, and probably not all the dangerous ones have an odour. But yes, ASA stinks, more than ABS, PA6 etc. Im printing in a conservatory (Sunroom) that’s permanent open at the top of the wall, but if its not raining I leave the door open also. Im still worried about the few minutes I go in there between prints, and about opening the printer door after a print & getting that rush of warm air into my face.
If the cover isn’t going to do it, I have no problems buying an air purifier. I would love to see pics and maybe even links to what you’ve got setup and purchased. I did a few searches on air purifiers a few months ago when I first started thinking about this and just got overwhelmed. I know nothing about air besides it’s what we breath.
Thanks for the links. Always helpful. I do however love making my own stuff even if I use their models for a few dimensions. My unit is very heavy and too close to the wall to get those measurements, so i cheated on those. I did make this last night, but wont be able to try it out for a few day.
Yeah, I hear ya… I also had a couple false starts when looking for a new filter. The last one I liked lasted 20-some years, but ofc they don’t make that anymore. And for some reason the negative ion generation feature combined with a typical air circulation style is rare. There’s a type of ion generator “filters” that just emit the ions and have another plate to attract them, no fan or pleated filter… but I’m not sold on those. The generated negative ions attach to positively charged particles (pollutants) in the air, making them clump together and too heavy to remain airborne. They then want to fall or stick to the closest surface with the strongest positive charge (many surfaces carry a positive static charge). If they’re close to the positively charged collector plate, then great, they go there (and will corrode the plate over time if not cleaned regularly/often). Otherwise they end up on the floor or other surfaces. Having actual filtered air circulation to nab those out of the air is a big plus, IMHO.
Google bot has a nice summary answer to “how do negative ion help clean air” and provides reference links, if anyone is interested in more info on that.
Anyhow, I’m hesitant to make a concrete recommendation… I’ve only had this one for a couple months. It works great so far, but I can’t speak to the longevity or maintenance. But with that caveat… https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079R4K1LZ (" Pure Enrichment PureZone Elite True HEPA Large Room Tower Air Purifier"). I wouldn’t call it “inexpensive” but that’s relative.
It had the features I wanted… HEPA filter with carbon layer & ion generator. Most I saw also had the U/V light feature, which I don’t need, but this one at least has a separate button for it, so I can leave it off. The carbon filter layer is separate from the pleated filter and in front of it, so will trap a lot of particles first. I bought extra cut-to-size woven carbon filter sheets so I can replace that for cheap (otherwise they only sell that with the pleated filter which should last a lot longer). In fact I also stuffed another layer of the carbon filter in there for good measure.
Here’s my current setup. The filter draws air from the back and spits it out the front. I printed some brackets for it with foamed PEBA Air inserts for it to rest on (happy to provide if anyone wants). Caveat emptor: The filter isn’t really designed to be mounted horizontally, remains to be see how the fan supports/bearings handle that. Runs smoother when vertical.
The shelf is attached to the table (using some brackets I made), which is on rollers, so the whole thing can move together when I need to get to the back. The shelf is a less-common 12" deep, which was a bit harder to find, but that’s perfect to fit the AMSs and still easily get into the top of the printer. “Box of shame” (plastic waste) under table
Ok, just a disclaimer: I am not a professional in the area of filtration I have been printing on different printers for about… 5 ish years? For my setup I use the Bambu X1C with AMS 2 PRO and buffer. It works great, although the carbon filter on the X1C wore out after some time. I have not replaced it because I do not really see a point if I am just printing PLA, PETG, and TPU.
In the picture and link I provided is the filtration system I use. It is just a regular consumer filter, but it works wonders. I have it in the area where my printer is (pretty big open area) and it works great. It no longer smells of plastic or stink… mostly just like a papery filtery smell. I do not know the science behind all of this (some may say it does not remove particulates from the air). But I think it works great.
Just another note on this filter: I have another one in my computer room which almost always has one or two people in it. People automatically make fumes from B.O. or food or whatever. With the filter in the computer room, it just smells like paper and filters.
I cannot recommend this type of filter enough, but a proper 3D printer type of filtration system may do better.
Some may say the best way is to vent fumes outside, but I do not think the filtered air would be that bad either. I mean… we live in a world of factories and gas cars and fumes… so I do not think it is a major issue.
I hope this helped, let me know if it did not, sorry for writing such a book
That’s not a bad price at all. Only question is where you put it. Why so high and can I put it on the floor and still get good results? I have a spot to the left of my dresser, right next to printer, that I would fit perfectly.
