I need a chamber heater, any recommendations?
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@Phaedrux How would I wire this to the Duet? I have a 500W 24v PSU I am going to get the 24v 150W Heater. Will this work with the Duet 3 MB6HC and I would I wire it? Also I notice it draws 150W my current PSU can barely power the printer after all the modifications, would I need a higher wattage PSU?
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@TRATOON, use an SSR that is switched by the Duet. My two cents - a 150 watt heater won't do a whole lot to increase your enclosure heat unless it is extremely well insulated. I have a Creality CR10 with a bed heater around 700W and it brings up my enclosure temperature maybe 10 - 15 degrees C. I do not know what the average heat output is once the bed starts cycling.
If I may suggest - stick a couple of 100W light bulbs in your enclosure and see how enclosure temperature changes. This will quickly tell you if the 150W heater will do enough for you and it's a whole lot cheaper than buying the heater, SSR and PSU just to find out you need a lot more heat.
Also, keep in mind that if you have barely enough heat for your purposes, it might take forever and a day to bring up the temperature - do you want to wait 30 minutes or an hour before you can start printing? -
My printer's chamber volume is 420 liters. I use a 500W heater scavenged from an old stratasys printer to heat the chamber. It takes about 20 minutes to get it up to 50C. I preheat the machine for about 20 minutes when I am going to print ABS, something I don't do very often any more. My printer isn't particularly well insulated- one whole side is just clear polycarbonate sheet so I can see what's happening inside the printer. More insulation would allow it to get up to temperature faster.
You can use almost anything for insulation, but PIR foam is especially good- it won't burn if your printer ever catches fire.
If you're going to heat the enclosure, you might consider moving the electronics out of the enclosure.
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@mrehorstdmd, what are the dimensions in mm to get 420 litres (that seems awfully big!)
What is the ambient temperature you start at or what is the increase in temperature that the heater achieves? -
@jens55 The machine has a 300x300 bed and 695 mm Z axis. The frame is a bit larger in all dimensions- 610 mm wide x 530 mm deep and the chamber Z dimension is about 1 m, so it's actually about 323 liter chamber volume.
I think the 420 number was an overall for the entire printer.
See: https://drmrehorst.blogspot.com/2017/07/ultra-megamax-dominator-3d-printer.html
Room temperature is 15-20C typically, and I run the chamber at 50C when printing ABS. The back, top, bottom, and sides are well insulated, but the front is just two large PC panels that aren't very good at containing the heat. I should probably cut a piece of foam to use when I'm printing ABS.
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@mrehorstdmd - Wow, that is some kind of monster! VERY impressive! Megamax Dominator indeed!
Coming back to the OP, he indicated a low temp of 0C vs your low of 15C. I would then say it is reasonable to assume that a 500W heater could, in theory, do the job for an Ender 5 Plus. Depending on how often the temperature ends up in the colder range, I would probably go with a second, additional heater just for bringing the printer to operational temperature as I tend to be a bit impatient.
In any case, there is little chance that a 150W heater is sufficient and I reiterate my suggestion of testing things with light bulbs.
An alternate thought - got a hair dryer that you could try out? The only issue there would be to make sure you don't have the air flow disrupting things. It would still involve an SSR and no additional (or replacement) 24V power supply. -
@jens55 if you don't need precise temperature control then it is sufficient to insulate the build chamber and let the bed heater do the work. The only times I printed ABS, I put 2 plastic bags over my delta printer to achieve sufficient chamber temperature. I took an occasional peek to check the print and to read a thermometer I had placed inside.
If you do need a separate heater then I think it may be worthwhile connecting a fan in parallel with the heater (or in parallel with the SSR input that controls the heater), so that when it is heating up the fan runs at full speed to spread the heat around, and when it is just maintaining temperature the fan runs more slowly.
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@jens55 I'd be cautious about having the printer in an environment that gets down to 0C. I'd be worried about moisture condensing on the electronics, and even some of the steel hardware when the room warms up a little. Rusty hardware doesn't look very nice.
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@mrehorstdmd, just for the record, I did not post the original question, @TRATOON did and I just replied to it.
Also, I agree with your comment .... -
@TRATOON i have used these finned strip heaters, in a heated chamber build before got up to 90 degrees c https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/291050095804
I first got some out of and old stratus printer but i did not know the name of them at the time.
