Ohms law doesn’t cut it. The power applied to the bed thermal element is controlled by electronics and thermal sensor. It doesn’t matter if 110Vac or 220Vac, the dissipated power should be the same for a specific temperature set to the bed. If you set 60C, it will heat the be with a specific power, less current for 220, double for 110. So, in a sense, only if you apply 100% of power (never happens) is that on 220V the power will be 4 times of the 110V.
Your understanding of the PID control circuit is flawed. Setting the bed to 60c turns the bed on near 100 percent and dials back the duty cycle as the bed approach’s temperature as to not overshoot and to maintain temperature. The temperature ramp is a result of the thermal mass of the bed, not a ramp function of the controller. Only when the bed is at temperature will the dissipated power will be similar as the duty cycle will be different between 110 and 220.
Go to your local library (at least in the US you can) and check out a WATT meter. Use the WATT meater to measure the WATTS the printer uses printing for an hour or so, find your electric bill and get you electric rate.
Decided to go to my library today and check out the WATT meter and run some tests.
Jon, you don’t know that as certain. You are assuming it is ramping up with 100%. It would be much wiser and safer to ramping up with some fixed higher current, unrelated to the supplied voltage being 110V or 220V. I produced several electronic equipment, including reflow ovens, never, ever, used 100% power for ramping up, it is dangerous and would apply stress to the thermal elements. Any normal resistive component presents lower resistance when cold, what could derange current and melt the thermal element. Nobody in sane mind would do that with expensive units. If the equipment can control the current / power by pwm or ppm to control temperature, they could also control the initial ramping thermal current. I really dont want to believe the ramping PID from Bamboo is flawed, they applied so much intelligence all over the machines to do so big a mistake. But, who knows. The problem is that Bamboo specifies power for the bed on 220V as kW range, what is not the case, and doesn’t make sense, even if such power is on ramping, it is not what it consumes during normal operation, what leads me to think the information is obviously all wrong.
Locoman, the power consumed by the bed will be exactly the same for a specific temperature, no matter if plugged in 110V or 220V, it must be, to achieve the steady same temperature.
I’ll hook the scope up to the bed terminals next time I have a printer appart for maintenance and that will tell us the true story.
Jon, just use a 110Vac x 12Vac transformer installed backwards (secondary) in series with the power cord, you could measure the current as voltage on the transformer primary without risking any ground loop or something. It would be nice if someone has a power logger, so we could see the real curves with time. Is there any fuse in series with the power input? if yes, what’s the value? Another hint would be compare ramping time to reach 60C in units plugged in 110V against the ones on 220Vac.
This was addressed in a post above.
Like this test with my X1C?
Grabbed an old computer cord and changed the plug. Ran a couple quick comparisons.
Our “110” outlets are actually 122VAC, so the “220” is 244 VAC.Started both tests with bed and chamber at 28 °C, set bed to 90 °C, measured time to temp with a stopwatch.
“110” took 6 minutes and 6 seconds.
“220” took about 53 seconds, maybe a second or two less because I looked away and stopped the timer a tad late. The numbers were changing quickly.
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Yes, this seems to show that Bamboo was sloppy and applied 100% of the power for the thermal ramping up, and this is why it consumes more power for the initial heating when plugged to 220Vac. Bamboo, Bamboo, don’t do that again !!! Power cable, power switch and internal wiring may suffer stress for that initial extra peak of current. Those Chinese low cost power switches that say 10/15A, I don’t trust them, plastic body, thermal deformation, etc. I read few people already replacing the plastic power switch.
I was struggling with this challenge while using this printer in India. Found a solution that will not require any high power UPS. I got APC Back-UPS BX600C-IN 600VA / 360W, 230V.
The trick is, pre heat the bed to 60degree & Nozzle to 220 degree and then connect the printer to the UPS and start print. This works well and I did not bother about buying a high watt UPS anymore.
Hope this helps…