I’ve been designing and prototyping a dust/light cover for the Form2 for production (a fitted fabric cover for the entire machine). Because of the heater inside the machine, I’m wondering whether covering the machine while it’s printing will trap the heat and become an issue.
Perhaps the heat is not great enough to need to disperse through the machine walls, or perhaps there is an internal thermostat that will adjust for the added insulation. But I would love to hear from those in support or well-versed users with their thoughts.
I smoke cigars in the same room where my Form1+ and Form2 are located (it has a set of boxer fans exhausting out a window, but it still, there’s smoke and Lasers and Mirrors).
I made dust covers out of cheap plasticized paint drop cloths and duct tape. Works great. Heat is not an issue. I haven’t made a window for the Form2 cover yet, because I’m looking for slightly better cheap plasticized drop cloth.
If you insulate it enough you’ll have problems, but it’s not just a simple coder warmer/burn-er; we put effort into making a controlled heater. So long as the waste heat from the motors and electronics isn’t trapped so well it overheats, the controller should maintain temperature. I haven’t tested a printer cozy, thoug. I’m curious what happens. It will probably control the resin temperature just fine.
I’ve seen no difference in the prints with or without a cover, either on the Form1+ or Form2. However, the “drop cloth” material I used is paper thin. It has little if any meaningful insulative value. Though it will interfere with convection some, since it blocks airflow around the machine.
I was thinking about a cover for my printer as well and had the same concerns about overheating. My cover would be for noise dampening though. My printer is in my home office which has no door and is open to the living space so if I can cut the noise down when its running everyone in my family including myself will be happier.
My printer backs up to a wall so I was thinking about a partial box with foam on inside that slides over the printer when its running. Is heat more a concern with something like that vs a fabric cover? I suppose I could always move the box so there is a gap against the wall for heat to escape. Any thoughts.
Yeah, I would expect that might be a problem. Foam is a very good insulator of both sound and heat. Trapping the heat generated by the printer might lead to “thermal runaway”, the printer gets hotter and hotter until something fails.
You could probably address that problem if you cut some slots, maybe 1" high along the bottom edges of the box, and a few similar slots at the top edges of the box. And the box has to be big enough the foam doesn’t touch the printer. You want to let air freely enter at the bottom, draw up by convection, and then exit the top.
Some sound will get out, too. But it’ll still be a lot quieter than “naked”.
First time I tried it, I’d do it with a thermocouple or thermometer inside the box to keep an eye on temperatures.
