I need to print things in PPA-CF, and Bambu recommends annealing completed print at 120 - 140 ℃ for 6 - 12 hours. The suggestion I read often about is to use a blast oven. Amazon seems to sell the same green and white model from many vendors for around $360 to $450. I’ve read in a couple of places that some folks are concerned with the lack of proper grounding with this model. Commercial blast ovens are available as well, but they seem to run north of $1K, which I’d rather not do.
I could also get a nice kitchen convection oven, such as the Emeril Lagasse Extra Large French Door Air Fryer for $210. My understanding is that these units may not hold temperature quite as well as a blast oven with a PID, but I’m not sure a small variation matters much. Other than that, I’m not quite sure what the advantage is of a blast oven. You can also use a filament dryer, or the 3D printer as a dryer (I have the X1C), but they don’t get anywhere near the recommended temperature for annealing.
Does anyone have any experience, recommendations, or insight for this?
Blast Ovens are intended to get stuff really hot really fast. Annealing wants to “bake” not “blast”. A small oven would work just fine for that. Except, those counter-top air fryers generally don’t have very accurate thermostats. You’d want to use a thermometer to calibrate the oven before you used it.
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“Blast oven” is just a Chinese translation of “forced air oven”. So it’s exactly the same as a forced convection oven, which is often shortened meaninglessly to “convection oven”.
In other words you are comparing exactly the same things. A “blast oven” is not a special type of oven intended to get things hot really fast, it’s just a chinese convection oven. Like this:
If you want a “lab blast oven” they often have higher temperature ranges or better temperature regulation, but that isn’t a property of being a “blast oven”, it’s a property of “lab”.
Thanks much to you both! I ordered my kitchen convection oven.
Depending on the construction, some of the smaller convection ovens like my Breville (a rare one which has PID) have elements on the top and bottom, while others have them hidden behind a panel in the back or the side.
It’s desirable to protect the filament/object from the direct infrared from the elements, I have some aluminum plates I use for this, but anything would work including a couple drip trays/pans if you slid them into the slots above and below. If you don’t have any of those you could even use aluminum foil.
Make sure you preheat the oven 1st before putting the model/filament in.
