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11. Managing Enclosure Temperatures
There's not much to a 3D printer enclosure. Although ours look fancy, functionally,
they're not much different from putting a cardboard box over the printers since both
designs are passively heated by the beds. How complicated can they be? This
section will explain how they work and how to manage the temperatures to get quality
prints while protecting your lungs.
We generally get two types of customers:
1.
Those interested primarily on air quality.
2.
Those interested mostly in print quality.
Think Airflow, Not Fishtank
The problem is that those two goals use two different techniques in terms of airflow.
We use the same design as industrial equipment for the best air quality, which uses
airflow to manage air quality. Because of physics, the amount of air moving into the
enclosure has to be equal to the air moving out of the enclosure. When the air moves
out of the enclosure carrying volatile organic compounds, it can be vented to the
outside or run through an air filter.
People often ask us if the enclosures are airtight and have a bottom. If your primary
concern is air quality, then being airtight doesn't buy you anything since the particles
will float out when you open the door. By maintaining a negative air pressure, the
particles are reliably kept away from human operators, which means having openings
for air to both enter and exit the enclosure.
If the maximum internal temperature is the goal, being airtight also doesn't help since
the leading cause of heat loss is conduction through the sides of the enclosure, not
through small amounts of air loss. A bottom doesn't help either since while heat
doesn't rise, hot air does, and thus almost all of the heat of an enclosure is at the top.
However, a bottom is helpful if your table is too small for the enclosure.
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