Hi All,

I hope you're all well. There are any number of ways to build an enclosure, and I thought I'd add my 2 cents (and perhaps no sense) about my experience with my enclosure. I figure the question has long since been answered for the OP but I thought I'd help anyone trawling the thread for ideas "after the fact".

Some things you should know about my situation before we begin:

1. I live in Canberra, and if it's not -2oC to -6oC on wintery mornings it's probably only 2-3oC. Conversely, it can be anything up to 41oC in summer. Although winter seems to last about 7-8 months of the year.. and summer can seem like a few days (like last summer), or maybe 7 weeks or so in hot/dry years.
2. I have a completely improvised enclosure, with draft/door seals around all openings. It uses a single glazed 4mm polycarbonate sheeting structure for windows/door, and a mixture of scrap bench top/MDF/plywood for the construction. The lack of any metal in the frame allows only minimal thermal bridging so with the thicker polycarb sheeting, it's not too bad in retention. Would it be better to have double glazing? Sure, but I was using my scrap pile, and I'm ok with that.
3. I have a little Prusa MK3S. Not some massive CR10 or larger unit with inferno options.
4. The printer enclosure (and printer within) are located in the garage (the only place I have room) which is completely lacking any semblence of insulation. So there are times I don't recommend printing.
5. I mostly print in ABS/PETG.


My main reasons for building the enclosure:

1. I have to keep the printer out in the shed, so something to keep the sawdust/dust out is needed.
2. Drafts could be an issue, but for me it's ambient temperature that needs most intervention.
3. I wanted to protect the printer from any flying debris (broken grinding disks, router chips, you know... general high velocity debris)

Once the printer is running, the ambient temperature in the enclosure is more than enough for my style of printing. However, getting it started in the cold is a bit more tricky.

Interesting fact, the Prusa won't fire up if the ambient temperature is too low. Well.. it'll turn on, but you'll get a temperature warning and that's it. I can't even tell it to turn the heat bed on or the hot end to warm itself up. Since I don't print that often, I'll often do my printing when the conditions are favourable. (I'll start in the afternoon in winter, or late night in summer. As such, I rarely have any issues with high temperatures in Canberra, but I can get the enclosure up to about 35-40 in winter if I have to. Seems to print ok in that range.

So if it's too cold, my solution follows one of three paths:

1. I have a mains powered dehumidifier, it's basically a small heater with silica gel. If I leave it on overnight, the enclosure keeps the warm air contained enough to fire up, and from there, the printer adds the rest of the warmth. In the dead of winter, I can reliably keep the internal temperature at about 18oC without the printers help using this method.

2. Sometimes, I'll turn my heat gun onto 40-50oC, and uncap the hole for power cords, and run it through the hole for a few minutes. Again, once started, the enclosure will stay warm (sans any help from gun/printer for the better part of an hour). Obviously, the printer helps during the print itself.

3. If you're technologically inclined.... you might like this one. I put my not-so-little laptop in the lower shelf of my enclosure, and do some 3D rendering, while slicing models, and updating firmware. If you're the Bitcoin mining sort, a couple of GPUs will certainly warm that enclosure up too. Basically, I'm just using some waste heat to do something useful for once. So there's some merits to leaving enough space to contain stuff. I was inspired when a friend of mine used his water cooled gaming PC to heat his tropical fish aquarium. It worked well but the salt water didn't do his heat exchange much good.

Now that it's vaguely summery (by Canberra standards) I store my partially used spools of filament in the lower shelf. It's handy and convenient.

I just want to say, that in summer, you don't want double glazing if you want to keep your door closed for sound damping purposes/dust protection, the heat will build up too much. This is where a little less insulation is a good thing. While I can happily use a Prusa without being bothered by it in open air... many other models are too noisy to pull this off.

Of course, you can use fans and maze-like channels going in and out of the box, both channels lined with sound damping materials to allow airflow through while preventing noise. You could even put filters on the intake to stop dust getting in. In short, you need to decide just how complicated you want to go. All of a sudden, that Lack table and some polycarb is looking pretty cheap and easy.

Personally, I don't like the cardboard/core flute method... yes, it works when everything goes as expected. However, if you're using an Anet A8 (somewhat renowned for catching on fire) then it's going to add fuel/sticky carcinogenic goodness to an already bad situation. Yes polycarbonate isn't much better once a fire situation is well underway, but a thicker material with a higher melting point is a little less prone to catching on fire. Also, because I have it basically sealed up, the lack of oxygen should slow things down for a while.

Anyway, I really appreciate that my humble enclosure reduces printing problems, helps it to run in a wider range of ambient temperatures, and protects it from dust, impacts, and other hazards found in a garage-styled workshop.

Enclosure3Unlit.jpg

Here's my enclosure, each post is actually a bunch of plywood planks glued together, trimmed, and painted. The shelves were from a free benchtop I got on Gumtree, and yes, I am aware of the circular saw burns in the front plank. I kept the burns there to remind me it's a scrap wood project. I have a smoke alarm installed on the ceiling of the enclosure for safety. I have my little dehumidifier (white cylindrical thing to the left of the printer), and my little Raspberry Pi (lower shelf) with web cam (upper shelf) for Octoprint.

I actually added the drawer to the bottom as an afterthought. It holds spare printing sheets, maintenance manuals, tips, tools, etc.

But why stop there...

Enclosure2Lit.jpg

I added some LED strip lighting, some adjustable feet so it will never wobble as the printer shakes itself around, a "safety switch" (dedicated RCD) to reduce the chance of any electrocution/fire. All in all, I'm very happy with it.

It was more work than a Lack table based enclosure... but that's not surprising. However, it used hardware, wood, and paint I already had laying about from other projects. I think the only expenses were the LED strip lights, the RCD switch, and a few screws/glue.


Anyway, I hope this rambling tale helps someone out there. Good luck with your 3D printing.

Ham