I have a couple of Prusa’s which I have in the house - they are so quiet that they are OK to live with while running. From what I’ve seen in videos the X1C is anything but quiet, and I don’t think I’d be able to have it in the house. The printers are all downstairs in an open plan space within about 5m of our sofa.
As such, I am wondering if an X1C would be able to work well in our outbuilding. It is not heated, so will be ambient + or - a few degrees C.
I am in the UK so temps will get to -5C on the absolute low end (very rare) and 38C on the absolute high end (rare). Average temp is about 15c. Humidity can vary from 50% to 95% through the year.
I don’t really want to pay to heat an outbuilding at the moment - electricity prices are sky high here.
I’d be really interested in anyone’s view on temps / noise. I intend to have this printer running as much as possible for a new business venture I am starting. The Prusa’s have been used for hobbies! They are absolutely fantastic, but I need bigger build plate and better multimaterial.
The printer will probably work fine. But I think you might get problems due to condensation on electronics and shafts, bearings, motors ect. after a while…
Try using the X1C in the house first. The X1C now has noise cancelling features for the stepper motors. Most videos were made before this feature was available. The fans can boost the noise level a bit, but that will depend on what you are printing and the need for cooling.
I keep my shop at about 6°C in the winter, but I’ve had some trouble printing unless I use the heat bed to preheat the chamber above 25°C. The filament does not stick as well to the bed or itself. I suspect flow rates could be affected if you try pushing frozen filament through the nozzle.
In your outbuilding, I’d consider making a small enclosure around the printer that could be warmed at least a little.
X1C motors are very silent after noise cancelling update. The only noise it makes is from the bed leveling procedure when start printing (very loud vilbration noise) and fans.
Calibration noise can be mitigated as the printer gcode can be edited to retain previous bed calibration settings. Procedure is right here on forum somewhere.
Fans make very loud noise if they are 100%. I almost always set them to AUX 0%, CHA 0%. and open top cover and door slightly for cooling. AUX and CHAmber fans are only needed in special ocasions when printing toxic filament. Small parts PLA noes not need AUX fan or CHA fan and when printing big parts it’s mandatory to turn them off, and close doors otherwise warping happens. And you only need AUX fan for overhangs or bridges but this is rare.
I can speak to this, because I previously kept my X1C in the garage. I don’t think you’ll find the higher temps you mentioned to be a problem, but colder temps can be an issue. If I were you I’d try to avoid running it below 10C. Below 4C ambient I noticed obvious degradation in print quality and I could tell from just the sounds it was making while moving the printhead that it was struggling, though I still don’t know exactly what it was about cold temperature that was causing problems. Anyhow, I moved it back inside the house, to normal ambient temperature for humans, and it’s all good now again.