3D Printer Dehydrator Chamber Heating

youmagine

This project started 11 months ago, about 1 month after MRRF 2018. The core of this project is using a sub $50 food dehydrator as a chamber heater. There are a ton of posts out there relating to using a dehydrator to dry filament but nothing, I can find, related to using a dehydrator as a chamber heater. In my tests with this method of chamber heating, it doubles as a filament dryer if the filament is within the same enclosure. Since using this as a chamber heater I have had no issues with delamination on ABS parts. It maintains about a 90-100F temperature which seems to be the ideal chamber temperature to keep the ABS from rapid cooling/shrinking and causing the delamination. I have printed as high as 200mm with a 2mm wall thickness with no delamination troubles, warping off of the bed, etc (all the common ABS issues). In terms of PETG parts, it is not required but it has seemed to help with bed adhesion on the German PEI embedded Aluminum. PETG spec when printing on this surface... Bed 90c with Glue stick over the PEI to give a break layer. The PETG does have a tenancy to stick too well to the PEI Aluminum bed, I have actually lost some of the PEI on the aluminum to this high adhesion issue. In terms of the effect of the heat on the electronics, I have had no overheating issue having the entire printer enclosed within the heat and I tend to just leave the dehydrator running all the time. I have provided Fusion 360 models and a dimensional drawing for how to make the enclosure. The opening and mounts fit a Elite Gourmet EFD-1010 135 Watt dehydrator. Have fun with this one. All of my ABS frustrations have gone away with this upgrade and mod. This setup will be debuted at MRRF 2019 on March 29-30.