Introduction: Finishing My 3D Printer Enclosure

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About: I am a hobbyist, maker, tinkerer, and generally curious person. I make Arduino projects and 3D print things as well. I’ll probably try something new next month

Hello!

I recently built part of an enclosure for my 3D printer. But I didn't finish it and still had a few things to add, that were just going to take time for me to figure out and I wanted to let y'all see what I was working on.

Today I am going to go over what I did to finish it up and make it suitable to print more changeling materials, like ASA or ABS.

I also made a video! It is liked as an image for this step.

Layout of this instructable will be a bit different than some of my others, I will be doing these in stages not really steps. So I add lights at one point, that's all one 'step'/'stage' because the actual order was all over the place.

Just a warning up front, there are a few steps were I am going to be intentionally vague about steps because, some stuff (mainly the wiring modifications i do later) are a bit risky. So if you don't know how to do it safely you probably shouldn't be doing it. (sorry this sounds a little mean but its just that I don't want you to burn your house down.)

Supplies

Supplies

Step 1: Lights

  • Lights
  • Mounting hardware

Step 2: Hotend Swap

Step 3: Door

Step 4:Wire Extension

  • Speaker wire
  • JST connectors
  • Heavy guage speaker wire
  • Exteral electronics enclosure

Step 5: Air Filter

  • Fans
  • HEPA filter
  • Active carbon
  • Bento Box printed parts
  • (check the printables link for the files and full parts list)
  • Wire
  • Switch


Tools

  • 3D printer
  • Screw drivers
  • Allen wrenches
  • Sand paper
  • Acrylic cutting tool
  • Clamp or friend
  • Straight edge
  • Drill bit (3/4")
  • Soldering iron

Step 1: Lights

Lets start off with the easy one.

I had some lights on one side of the enclosure at the end of the last part. But I had some of these puck IKEA lights.

I just mapped out where I wanted them and put the mounts on the top of the enclosure.

This is part of why I used such a thick piece of MDF for the top and bottom so that I could use screws too add things like, lights.

For power I drilled a hole in the side of the enclosure, and ran the cord out the side. I only drilled it a bit bigger than the bundle of wires so there won't be a ton of air exchange.

Step 2: Hotend Swap

I won't spend a ton of time on this step, however, it is important to note that the stock Ender 3 hot end isn't ideal for printing ABS or ASA as the PTFE tube runs all the way to the back of the nozzle.

PTFE starts to break down over about 250C so printing materials at 265 can release fumes from the PTFE as well as the filament. I deiced to swap out the hotend for the Spider hotend from Creality. Its an all metal hotend meaning that the PFTE tube stops much higher out of the melt zone so it will never reach dangerous temperatures.

Its worked well for me. I did try some all metal heat breaks for a while but often had lots of clogging issues with them.

Tips for the install? Yeah, the wires from the heaterblock come out on the oposite side from the stock so keep that in mind. Also the kit I got did not come with the right thermistor, so I ended up just sticking the glass bead into the spot for it and its worked well enough.

And the nozzle is longer than stock, so dont go printing right away or you will destory your bed.

Step 3: Door

Now on to what makes this an enclosure and not just a tiny room only big enough for a 3D printer, or air fryer, the door.

The door was made of a sheet of acrylic I got on sale.

I found some hinges over on printables, but they weren't quite what I wanted. Luckily, I know how to use a CAD program and had a bit of time. So I whipped us some new ones and a latch to go along with it.

I am using the same screws to hold the hinges and the latch to the enclosure. Another useful thing about the wood frame is, I can just attach stuff to it.

I set the hinges where I wanted them and measured where the size I needed for the acrylic. And as Norm Abram would always say 'measure twice cut once.'

For my enclosure and the mounting of my hinges I had a measurement of XXmm.

Cutting Acrylic

And, this is one thing I do feel qualified to talk about, cutting acrylic. My source is I worked in a hardware store for several years and learned to cut acrylic there.

First off, to cut it at home you need a tool, see the image on this step. its an acrylic cutting tool. They are fairly cheap, and this is once case where you really need the right tool for the job. The other thing you need is a straight edge longer than your piece. And a way to hold that straight edge, whether its clamps or a friend.

Place the straight edge on the good side of the cut, so any mistakes will go onto the waste side. Again, double check your measurements, and make sure they are to the correct side (the side you'll be cutting on) of the ruler.

Clamp the straight edge or get your friend to hold it down.

Score the acrylic sever tiles, pressing the tool against the straight edge the whole time.

once you have a noticeable gouge in one side of the acrylic. Remove the straight edge and move the score to a sharp edge of a table or counter top. You'll notice in the video I had cardboard under the acrylic the first time and that didn't provide enough pressure. So I removed that then placed a metal ruler under the score line.

You need to hold the good side on the top surface, then apply pressure on the waste side opposite the score line. Depending on the thickness, length of the cut, and how deep the score you made is it may take a bit. If it really feels like its taking too much, you can line up the straight edge and make a few more passes with the scoring tool.

Another thing you can see in the video, is the acrylic film, after the sheet breaks at the score line, use a blade to cut the film on the back side.

I always leave the film on as long as possible, as it prevents scratches and fingerprints.

Gluing PLA the Acrylic

Gluing plastic is always a bit of a pain. Like most actives preparation is important for a good bond. Wait, um. Basically, plastics dont like to stick well. To get the PLA to stick to the acrylic the surfaces that we are bonding need to be ready to be bonded.

Also we need to get the right kind of glue. I got a 2 part epoxy specially for plastic. I used this JB Weld.

To get the PLA hinge ready I sanded the surface with 120 grit then 220 grit. This evens out the layer lines to make the surface more flat and easier to bond, while still leaving a lot of surface area for the glue to work on.

For the acrylic, I marked out the area where the glue would go and then used blue tape to outline it, then sanded it with 220 to make the epoxy stick better.

For both parts, I cleaned the sanded area with water and IPA and allowed it to dry fully. I then followed the direction on the package for the epoxy, and let it cure overnight.

And that was it. The door is done, the hinges on the door, slide right onto the hinges on the enclosure.


However, for me, an enclosure caused another problem. With no way to get heat out, the electronics, (the main board) would overheat after printing for about an hour...

Step 4: Wire Extension

This step is not something to do lightly. Swapping wires around on your printer can be dangerous to you, and your house. So, do this at your own risk!

To resolve the issue of the electronics over heating I decided to move the electronics outside of the enclosure. This can be done without making any wires long if you are able to place the electronics right next to the enclosure. But for me I needed the electronics to be on top of the enclosure, this means I need to extend some of the wires.

For the motor wires I just got some premade motor extension cables.

For the heated bed thermistor wires I used some speaker wire and a JST connector at each end. As the sensor wires don’t carry hardly any power small wire gauge is fine here.

The bed heater wires are another story. They carry a lot of power to the bed when heating up and using a wire gauge that is too small here could cause the wires to overheat and melt. Something like standard wire out of your wall would work. I opted to go for a heavy gauge speaker wire to match was seems to be on the bed, I used some large bullet connectors to connect the existing wires to the new wire. Again, this modification is at your own risk.

I put all my electronics in this external enclosure which holds the PSU, Rpi, and main board. This is a modified version that will hold the BBT SKR Turbo that I have.

Step 5: Air Filter

Whooo, final stretch here.

At this point the enclosure is ready to print ABS or ASA, we’ve got a door and the electronics will not over heat. But there is a problem. When printing either of those filaments they release nasty gases that you don’t want to breath, and can be a bigger problems for small animals or kids. So I am going to add a filter to hopefully remove any particles from the air and neutralize the gases released by the filament. If you follow along with other projects I’ve made you may remember a while ago I made an air filter for my soldering station. Air quality is something I have become more aware of over the past few years.

Back to the actual thing I’m adding. The air filter. I chose to add a Bento Box air filter. This is a multi-pass filter that has both activated charcoal and a HEPA filter.

I printed all the parts out of PETG. This is supposed to have magnets to hold the stages together but the fit I had was tight enough I left them out. I may add them later, but for now.

I wired the fans into the 24v out port of my main board. I added a switch so that I can manually turn it on and off. I had hoped I could wire them to a CNC fan port on my main board as then they could be controlled from Klipper in gcode, but alas.

Step 6: Tips for ASA

While you’re here I figured I could also give you a few tips I found for printing ASA on an Ender 3.

I stated with an ABS profile in the slicer and boosted the bed temp to 100C which works pretty well, but 110 works really well. And if you still have issues some glue stick works great.

For a while I was using a raft on everything but the glue and higher bed temp seemed to take care of that.

For nozzle temp. I did a temp tower and 230C gave me a really nice semigloss texture while still giving good layer strength and no stringing.

For retraction (this is very machine depended) I am using XXmm on my Bowden setup.

This combination is giving me great results. Take a look at the images for this step. I even see very little warping on larger parts like this keyboard case.

Step 7: Conclusion

Thanks for reading all the way to the end.

Feel free to leave a comment of question!