I should have built this thing from the word go. I ran this printer for almost a year on my desk right next to my computer. But it was loud and smelly and the high traffic area played havoc on print quality and caused a lot of warping.
Now that it’s tucked away in a back room suspended in a corner by French cleats and sitting directly on top of dense foam and a big ass paver it is merely “audible” but certainly ignorable. There’s also no more headaches from the smell, and my print quality has never been better.
Do yourself and your printer a favor and get an enclosure sorted out asap.
I’m wanting to build one in my office, but I also want to print in some of the more nasty filaments (ABS/ASA). Do you have any recommendations or suggestions for ventilation?
Put a carbon filter and HEPA filter in the enclosure with a fan to recirculate the air through it.
Like other folks are saying, a good carbon filter should do you right. My enclosure is mounted on an exterior wall so Im currently thinking long term that I’m going to try to vent mine out through the soffit.
Mine will be on an exterior wall, so venting is an absolute possibility. With that though, I’m unsure how much air to move… my printer is enclosed, so drafts and warping aren’t as big a concern; just VOC dispersal and safety. I don’t need to catch a lung full of stage four because I wanted to print some junk to make gardening easier.
It’s more about pressure than airflow. You just need negative pressure inside the chamber, so gas escapes into your chamber through the cracks, and out the vent.
I totally get that, if you are worried about over or under ventilating I’d just figure out how what the total volume of your enclosure is and then compare that to the CFM of your exhaust fan and it will give you an idea of how many air changes you get in a minute.
Look into what illicit/grey market pot growers use. Big duct fans and filters.
just say homegrow. there are regions where it’s legal to grow your own “pot”
but those are way overkill.
Yeah. I’ve been so removed from that stuff for so long that I forget the terminology.
As for overkill, depends on how their acceptable risk profile, number of printers, and types (FDM, resin, pastry, etc).
I printed a Bento Box filter for my enders when I started printing ABS. These seem to work pretty well but make sure you get the right carbon and good enough fans. Another printed option is the nevermore but that’s mostly associated with voron printers.