Heated Chamber Printed Frame:
What do we want in a frame piece for a delta printer or rather any printer subjected to high heat?
- High glass transition Temperature
-High strength
-Low warp to keep our frame as accurate as possible
I've come across a few materials such as:
-ABS: It's strong, comes in various colors, higher Tg temperature at 100C usually, cheap, requires heated bed, can warp and crack if temperature isn't maintained, prints at ~230C
-Taulman Tritan: Also strong, comes in a clear color, new material, Tg rated at 110C, not very cheap for 1kg
-Polycarbonate: One of the strongest materials available to FDM printing, used in bulletproofing applications, extremely hydroscopic and will be completely unprintable if left out even for 24 hours in a fairly humid environment, requires extremely high printing temperatures, 260C the lowest admissible print temperature @30mm/s. 100mm/s + requires 300+C temperature in an all metal hotend with a thermocouple, is only available in clear, and has the highest Tg of any material I've seen at 150C
-PC-ABS: An combination of ABS and PC to give you the positives of PC while trying to make it easier to print like ABS, Protopasta offers it in natural or black, in between cost of ABS and PC at $48 for 750g, can warp if not careful and is still very hydroscopic, but less so than pure PC. Has a Tg of 135C, prints at 260C-280C, requires an all metal hot end, but not a thermocouple
Also, PC, PC-ABS, and ABS also release significant fumes, PC and PC-ABS, in particular release a lot of fine particles in the air which can irritate respiratory tracts and eyes after a period of time.
Always printed in a ventilated area.
I personally, will probably use PC-ABS as it fits the my needs the most and I doubt my heated chamber will come even close to that Tg, but I believe it's better to over-engineer than engineer just enough.
PC-ABS is easier to print than pure PC, but offers very high glass transition temp @ 135C, is offered in black and is reasonable at $48 for 750g of filament
Heated Chamber Plan:
The plan is to print the frame pieces in ABS first and thus set up the Heated Chamber and then reprint all the frame pieces in PC-ABS if I see that the chamber temps get too high.
Some parts must be printed PC-ABS such as the Effector, the Hotend mount, the Heated Lamp cover and the X-bracing
I will use a STC-1000 controller (popular, and cheap temperature controller used in Homebrewing) to control the IR Lamp.
New Upgrades and Revision Updates
-Creating an addon board CRAMP3, for CRAMPS controller board which allows for 3 extra stepper drivers.
-6 total Extruders for multi-color, multi material printing
-STC-1000 Temperature Controller
-Nozzle cleaner (Toothbrush Bristles)
-Watercooled E3DV6 using a 25mm Water Jacket cooler made for R/C Boats
-9" Touchscreen mounted on the top face of the printer instead of the bottom
-Lego-base Spool Holder for 6 filaments spools
-Dual magnetic latches to hold onto the Polycarbonate Panels,
Auto-Calibration is not readily available in LinuxCNC and so I will hold off on using FSRs for Auto-calibration at this time.
Once I switch to LinuxCNC, Slic3r will be my slicer of choice due to the multi-extruder capability of Slic3r not available in other slicers such as Cura.
That's all for now!
