Fantastic work. This was my initial desire to build a containing box for my Form2 in my appartment to protect from dust and light.
By lack of time I found a kitchen furniture (from Conforama in France) which ended up perfect for my need -> cost = 86€
There is no smell and I can even keep my solvent + finishing kit in a closed container below the printer.
It does indeed 
I sleep the room next door but I haven’t printed at night yet. I think most bothering wouldn’t be the noise level but the repetitive muffled motor sound.
Hello!
We have a Form 2, Wash and Cure in our university’s library. The room these are housed in is about 28 feet by 19 feet and is an interior room with an intake and an outake vent from the building’s cooling and heating system. We also have various grit sandpapers for hand sanding that folks can use. One of our folks has requested we purchase an in room air filter and I would be grateful to hear your opinions. This is the filter they have requested:
Coway AP-1512HH Mighty Air Purifier
Thank you very much!
i didn’t want to duct air thru the wall or out a window.
And fumes do not only come from the printer- they also come from your cartridges and tanks- which should also not be exposed to temperature extremes, nor excess light.
So I went to a used office furniture store to buy a nice Steelcase cabinet and found this thing
what I liked about it was that its interior was dark with black adjustable shelves and it came with leveling feet. I paid $150 bucks for the cabinet.
Inside I set up the shelves to hold the printer with enough room to open the lid… and the spaced the lower shelves to be ideal for storing up to 6 tanks and as many cartridges as I please, properly oriented on their side with label showing.
at the upper left you can see I installed a short shelf near the top of the cabinet to hold a large activated charcoal filter- this type is sold online for pot growing operations and is both affordable at $30 and large enough to last for a year of continuous use.
the top of the filter is ducted to a fitting I printed to fit in a 4" hole I cut in the top of the cabinet.
And that is ducted to a 4" whisper quiet axial flow fan. This was the most expensive component at $170.
On the outflow port of the fan I installed another fixture I designed and printed to diffuse the outflowing air by directing it thru a another charcoal filter that can be purchased for $1 each or so and are made to fit home composters.
As designed the outflowing air has to pass once thru the center of the filter, and then again thru the rim of the filter.
I print with the doors closed- the fan pulls air from inside the cabinet thru the charcoal filter to return cleaned air to the room. The doors and side panels of the cabinet are NOT air tight… and it is thru these narrow gaps that room air is pulled into the cabinet from all sides, and washes thru the filter on its way out.
that is, the fan maintains a negative air pressure inside the cabinet.
With the doors closed, the cabinet is pitch black inside and so no extraneous UV leaks in. Even with the doors open, its hard to see inside because the black interior swallows so much light.
I leave the fan running 24hrs per day.- but it is designed for that.
This particular fan also has a Probe that is mounted inside the cabinet that tells me what the temperature is inside the cabinet.
I find this enables me to live in the room with the printer and all the room air eventually is cycled thru the filter every 24 hours- so I have noticed a significant reduction in ambient dust.
I originally rigged this with the fan INSIDE the cabinet… mounted directly on top of the filter- but the odd thing was that the Fan’s motor created some kind of interference with the Form2’s accelerometers…so the the Leveling bubble on the display would wiggle back and forth and be unable to read a steady level.
Moving the fan outside the cabinet solved the problem.
This is a great thread!
Personally I’m more irritated from the alcohol vapors than from any printing fumes - especially since getting the Form Wash (which is a great machine aside that the lid doesn’t seal). In exasperation one day I put a clear plastic garbage bag around my Form Wash. If I’m present when the wash cycle is done, I move the wet print to another room then twist the open end of the bag together to form a makeshift seal. I didn’t think it would help much but subjectively speaking it seems to be surprisingly effective. Enough that for now I’ve left it as a permanent (if ugly) fixture of my 3D printing workspace.
I keep the IPA wash and curebox in my studio proper- which is not temperature controlled… like a garage.
The curebox has its own internal heaters- so that works fine, and the ordinary cure station has gasketed lids that keep the IPA contained when I’m not washing parts. However- I really don’t like how much expsoure to IPA i get when washing parts- so I plan to build a partial enclosure- like a small paint spray booth- that will have an exhaust fan and give me a strong positive airflow INTO the hooded wash station and thereby keep the fumes moving away from me.
The only problem with the BAG trick mentioned above is that it SLOWS or even halts the ability of the IPA to evaporate off of cleaned parts. Once the air in the bag is saturated with fumes- the ipa still on the part can not really continue to evaporate.
No, I take the parts out and put them in another room before I close up the bag. I do leave the bag open during the wash cycle itself so the platform can raise without obstruction.
It’s not perfect and I’d love to improve the facilities (e.g. separate ventilated room, containment box with filtered exhaust, etc.) but it took all of 10 seconds to set up and seems moderately helpful as a stopgap in the meantime.
so- you’re saying that the formwash releases IPA fumes when NOT in use or not even open?
How long does it take for all the IPA to evaporate? Or enough that you need to top it off to wash more parts?
There are no gaskets on the lid. They did tests and determined gaskets didn’t make much difference. I’m willing to bet that’s because the lid is so lightweight and there’s nothing really pushing against the gasket to create a seal.
Original Form 1 rinse buckets had great clip-on lids with silicone[?] gaskets that created a perfect seal. Unfortunately the gaskets would degrade over time after lots of exposure to alcohol. The latest Form 2 manual rinse buckets have lid gaskets which I think seal decently when using the clip-on lids but don’t do much when you use the convenient, flip-up lids integrated into the station. They help a bit, but are not as effective. The Form Wash abandoned gaskets altogether. Some users (including myself) do find it evaporates quicker than expected - you have to top it off regularly.
Hope that answers your question!
i have the wash station with the flip up lids- the gaskets seal them well enough that I can’t smell any IPA at all when they are closed and I have seen zero evaporation.
but there is a LOT of fumes whenever I am using the thing, and while the parts are drying out.
This guy hit the nail on the head! The real question I wanted to ask is “Would the wife be able to smell it?”
@JLYL33 > I found a kitchen furniture (from Conforama in France)
Can you find a link to the cabinet?
As several have mentioned, the form 2 needs to be in a dust free environment. Do not let anything blow dusty room air on it or it will eventually stop working well.
And I agree with all who have said the IPA is the real problem. My Formwash IPA evaporates at an alarming rate. It is not sealed at all and can be smelled when you enter the room. IMO, if you do not print every week then the static IPA evaporation from the formwash will far exceed the IPA evaporation from actual part washing.
Hi James,
You may want to consider where your FDM printers are located in relation to the Form 2. As others have identified, the Form 2’s greatest enemy is dust!!
My own thoughts were originally that all the printers could live happily together, the reality is that after a period of use of the FDM printers then there was noticeable dust in the workshop. After reading the article in the link below we have now put each FDM printer into its own air filtered cabinet, that cut the dust down dramatically. Its also hopefully helped everyone live a little longer!!
It’s pretty shocking considering that young adults and kids have these 300 dollar FDM machines in their bedrooms and living room and how little warnings are given out about the dangers.
