I don’t know how interested people are in this but I did another brief test. This time I had the room closed up so it had no ventilation and printed for about an hour, PLA Basic.
There was a very small test print about 12pm (1/3rd the way over) and then a continuous print about 12:50pm (about 2/3rds of the way from the left). When that print ran the particulates went up sharply but did not go up all that far at least as I understand the scale. All sizes went up more or less equally (though the very tiny just a tiny bit less).
Ammonia went up and stayed up but again, very low.
The VOC went up (I don’t know what the units are there, it’s dimensionless in the output) and a bump in NOX which then settled down.
Nothing particularly concerning though the particulates are probably cumulative with more printing if I don’t do some exhaust.
Off to do more testing…
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Do you have a pressure sensor on that instrument you bought?
Your comment about closing up the room tight triggered a thought.
I used a BME 280 and a BME 688 sensor which you might want to consider, but those sensors could see each time my AC started and stopped. You could see a little bump on the barometric pressure and humidity trend. You might consider using a pair of sensors like that, do some math and control fan speed to yield a slightly negative pressure compared to the one reading static room pressure.
We did that control loop where I worked, with the exception being that it was controlling a 1000HP motor. Kept ash and fume inside. Same exact goal, only difference being size.
Tight was misleading, I meant the windows to the outside. The door was open, but the HVAC wasn’t running so the air was stagnant. At this moment I don’t have another pressure sensor, but it’s an interesting idea to have one inside and outside the chamber if they are precise enough; not sure how precise they are (e.g. and/or varying with things like temperature which might through one off relative to the other).
Trying to finish off my box for the ESP32 to control the fan, finished off the ducting. Didn’t know how to make a springy-cylinder (it’s wrapped around a hard plastic tube from the white vent), so I just cut it on four sides with a saw and let the metal strap squeeze. Wasn’t worth reprinting to put slits in it (clearly I’m not enough of a 3d enthusiast yet 
)
I knew what you meant. I was surprised when I first saw the pattern on the sensors I used to get an understanding of what was happening in and around my printer. Figured it out real quick but depending on the timespan you can see both things like AC/Heat starting and stopping and day/night changes in barometric pressure and humidity.
My profile picture is me sitting in my control room. I spent 30+ years staring at sensors of various types so it is seared in my brain. I usually stick with Adafruit or to a lesser extent, Sparkfun sensors because they are both American firms who have a good reputation for quality.
Like I made reference to a BME280 sensor which is pretty commonly used to read Temperature, Humidity, and Barometric/Atmospheric Pressure.
A genuine BME280 sensor, the sensor is made by Bosch, and then a manufacturer mounts it to a PCB to target a certain audience. A benefit of using the Adafruit and Sparkfun sensors is that they have an ecosystem designed around just daisy-chaining the sensors one after another and they have the drivers and sample code to get things up and running super quick.
You can find BME280’s (for example) from dozens of different manufacturers on Amazon or AliExpress of which it is about impossible to determine the quality and repeatability of. They will be cheaper though.
I’m with you regarding Fusion. Just discovered chamfers.
I confess that I’m addicted to the over-night (sometimes same day) stuff from Amazon, which largely means Chinese. I’ve bought from Adafruit, maybe Sparkfun, but the long ship times is just hard to take when I’m feeling my way through projects.
Yesterday I realized I needed 4 pin fan headers, today I realized I need barrel connectors I can solder to the board (I have ton in pigtails and for wires). If each failure to anticipate took a week’s delivery time I’d be old… well, older before I got anything built.
I’m perfectly willing to pay US prices, but not US delivery times. Just too into instant gratification.
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What are each individual steps?
I was thinking it was each pin getting soldered, but the count isn’t right, and I would expect each spike to be approximately the same height. Also, not for it to drop off as you progressed from Pin 1 —>Pin 4
I deleted that because I soldered something else and got zero. So I’m not sure at all what that blip was. I wasn’t cooking, the HVAC was off, the printer was running but no reason I think think of a major blip. So… sensor error? Something in my house let go a big pile of dust? Until I see it more I won’t know.
(For those figuring this out, there was a big burst of particulates about the time I did some soldering, but in retrospect I don’t think that was the cause).
Well, it’s in and running, though manually adjusting fan RPM, however…
Is there any guidance on desirable chamber temperature vs filament type?
I see several topics on that but they tend to be able maximum temps reached with insulation, or about insulation and ventilation techniques.
What I’m looking for is a table of filament vs desirable chamber temps, something like the tables with bed temps, hot-end temps, etc.
Anyone know where to find one?
My best synopsis so far is PLA/PETG > 20C otherwise as cool as you can, everything else as hot as it will go? (It = P1S with just native heat nothing added)
I should put this to bed. The exhaust goes out the window, and a 120mm fan is at the window which is controlled by a wifi ESP32 that I can script in Home Assistant.
I printed ASA by pre-heating the bed to get it around 50C before starting the print. I had sealed the poop chute, the belt openings in the back, and put some painters tape over the hinge side of the door which has a pretty large crack. There’s still a lot of openings for air to come in.
I put a wifi temperature sensor at the top of the chamber in the USB connector to provide power. It will tell me chamber temperature. The case for the sensor and ESP32 (separated a bit to keep the ESP heat from affecting the reading).
Printing PLA I run the fan at full speed, and the chamber maxes out around 37C or so.
Printing ASA tonight with the fan at 15-20% (I experimented a bit) there was no odor inside, and a very strong odor at the window outside. So I think it was working to keep me safe. I also have a air quality meter inside by the printer and it did not register anything during the print run.
This is what the chamber temperature (vs fan RPM) looked like. When the print was done I turned the fan on full and you can see the chamber temperature come down.
This was my second attempt, first time came off the bed. This time I used both a bit of glue stick and also a skirt inside and out, and it stuck fine to the end (this was about a 5" tall print). There was no distortion. All good.
At the moment I’m changing the fan by hand but will script it in Home Assistant so I don’t have to think about it, I can drive the desired temperature by noticing the active plate contents (e.g. “contains ‘PLA’” or “contains ‘ASA’”.
Not sure I will often need ASA, but nice to know I can print it. This was actually for a friend, a sun/dew shield for a SeeStar, so it might end up in the sun if he uses it with a solar filter.
Linwood
This is temperature guidance for the X1E but may be of help.
X1E Chamber Setting Guide
I wonder what the chamber temperature profile looks like in the chamber using an IR camera
I’m very confused by this. To date everything I had read said you needed a very warm chamber for ABS and ASA, people are wrapping them in blankets, building walls to prevent any cool air, and this says:
(2) ASA, ABS: Chamber temperature setting: The default chamber temperature setting is off (0 °C).
Though I think some lawyer told them to say it, as they add this:
In order to obtain better air filtration effect, we choose to disable the chamber temperature by default.
Of course they go on to say for certain other filaments they did enable it at 60C. So…
I’m guessing 60C for ASA/ABS is the real answer?
FLIR image of heat bed printing toy glider in ABS.
Notable that the glass blocks the IR pretty effectively when door is shut. This I took with door open.
I have a Seek and was going to look, but I think the main issue is that the camera is really detecting radiated heat from the surfaces only, it does not show air temperature, and air temperature and drafts inside are what would affect model warping and stability (other than bed adhesion).
I guess over a long print the surrounding walls will reach somewhere near equilibrium. Maybe; they are not well insulated (at least as it comes).
Linwood
PS. How accurate do you find the Flir (accurate, not precise)? My Seek does a nice job of relative temperatures of things in frame, but it’s all over the place on actual temperatures, like maybe +/- 8C or so off, and not consistently. Still very useful for relative temperatures, e.g. where insulation is bad, but awful if I want to know what the real temperature of a thing is.
I have a long ABS print running so I walked back over and took some pictures.
The bed, which is big and stationary is reading 89.7ºC on the FLIR device and Bambu Studio is indicating 89ºC with a setpoint of 90ºC.
I bought this device several years back. At the time it was called a FLIR ONE V1 and I think they are making V3 these days.
I would not buy this particular FLIR product again, although I would buy a FLIR pistol format device.
Interesting how little heat soaks into the hull of the printer. I suspect if you stuck several temperature sensors throughout the hull they would all generally be much lower than the nozzle tip and the bed.
Probably, to get UL or whichever certification for a 3d printer there is a lot that goes into keeping the housing cool.
If you have ever experienced a high pressure, high temperature steam leak, it is impossible to locate it by sound and I bought it for stuff like that. Accuracy was not a major concern but generally good devices are pretty accurate.
Thanks. Bought mine for checking home insulation, surprisingly useful for that. But accuracy as a thermometer is not there. Anyway, thanks for the insights.
I’ m inclined to think, after looking at the FLIR data, is that for efficiencies sake, putting an adhesive backed heating pads on the side panels is a better option.
I have heard a few comments long the lines of I let the printer soak at temp all night and started print on day two.
Heating pad to the rescue.
I guess, though I worry about artificially getting it a lot hotter than designed. Closing most vent holes and letting the bed heat for 30-60 minutes looks like it gets it near the 60C range.
But my printer is new (and new to me), so maybe I’m just being more paranoid, especially than those with a herd of them (what are many 3D printers called – herd? Swarm?)
What material(s) do you anticipate having issues with?
ASA. I’ve read it is hard to get adhesion and also hard to keep from warping, especially exacerbated by any cool air in the chamber.
My first experiment didn’t stick. For the redo I added a thorough cleaning, glue and also skirts, and took more care to get the chamber warm and the second attempt worked fine, so not sure what fixed it.
If it is any help, it looks like the cyberbrick camera module is essentially a g-code controllable switch (or at least a g-code controllable trigger).
