While waiting for my new M2 Kit to arrive I built this heated enclosure. I'm new to 3D printing and was planning to mostly use ABS, although PLA is stronger than I thought it would be. Anyway, I read where ABS can warp or suffer layer separation if the ambient air is too cool, so I'm using an STS-1000 temp controller rigged to a hair dryer to keep the chamber from getting below a certain temp (yet to be determined). The cabinet tends to run at around 100 F inside with the front door open due to the heat the machine generates, and I wasn't planning to run it hotter than 120F anyway to keep the steppers from overheating. All electronics have been moved outside the chamber. I also put a portable de-humidifier in the filament storage cabinet, which is also rigged to a humidity controller on the front panel. This might be tech overkill too, but it is easy to do and not that expensive so might as well geek out just for the fun of it. I plan to eventually move the filament spool down inside the cabinet and feed the filament up through the floor of the chamber so that all filament is always in the de-humidified box. I live in Florida so the humidity here does get pretty high outside. Although I keep this setup in my office where I work, the environmental control it has would allow you to run it in a cold basement or humid garage too. Anyway, detailed build pics are below. So far the prints are looking great!
The access door actually slides down, not pulls out like most boxes I've seen. A magnet holds the door from the top when closed. The windows are all 3/16" plexiglass. The machine height is designed for operation while sitting in a chair rather than standing. The dimensions were chosen to make optimum use of 4 x 8 sheets of plywood or melamine, which takes one and a half sheets to build. It is just under 24" square, with just enough room to handle the full range of the Y axis without the platform hitting either side, and is still small enough to just barely fit through a typical doorway. It disassembles into three pieces in order to make moving it easier. There is a vent in the back which can be used to vent ABS fumes through a shop-vac hose piped through a window in order to keep from stinking up your house if you print in your home. I'm going to look at trying to use some kind of air filter instead though, that way the machine doesn't have to be located near a window. I did have to reverse the orientation of the SD card holder on the controller box, since the front of the box butts up against the cabinet wall in order to allow plugging the USB cable in through the side of the cabinet.
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