Heated bed and enclosure

[Blargedy]

Do you plan on working on the mechanical design of the printer any more? The features that are missing compared to other printers is a heated bed and enclosed build volume so that you can print with ABS/ASA.

The heated bed is far more important than the enclosure since the enclosure can be jerry rigged together with basically any material, and doesn't need much design work. I'll explore the printer's CAD soon to see if the heated bed can be done with slip rings or something, and talk to fabreeko about fabricating a custom heater pad and machined build plate.

[Thefonze74065]

I'd love to see this, but do we know if a heated bed is necessary for non-planar printing?

I assume prints wouldn't warp in the same ways as a traditional printer...
with some slicer settings, we might even be able to make most layers shrink towards the build plate into the print, rather than upwards away from it; conical layers should shrink in a set direction.

[TheOnlyMann]

unrelated to ABS fume issues, how would the heated bed be constantly powered while its rotating on a shaft?
i get slip rings exist, but since like normal printbed draws out ~30 Amps(quick google search, I know nothing about this) ~30A slip rings would probably cost about ~40 bucks(from amazon, your mileage may vary) with possible wear/tear over time
it would be a nice feature to have, but idk if its going to be easy.

https://www.instructables.com/Make-a-Polar-3D-Printer-Spinning-Bed/
Did found some Ender 2 Polar Conversion project that went with the slip ring. Possibly the design can be interchanged with the current one?

[TheOnlyMann]

Would it be possible to re-instate Heated bed upgrades from a Delta printer(which beds are already shaped circular, and their magnetic springsteel PEI plates also) and use that alongside a slip ring to make a proper heated bed for the polar printer?
seems like there already exists like these Anycubic Delta Kossel's Heated bed upgrade kits.
Due to how everything has to spin you probably need a 4 channel slip ring I guess? Not really knowledgable in any of this field so feel free to correct my mistakes.

[Blargedy]

That's not a bad idea to modify a delta printer's bed assembly to cut down on the designing required for something like this. I could see that working.

[TheOnlyMann]

Update
looked at some stuff and i think the DC bed is the way to go, for now

DC Bed

+Pros

• can use existing products like Siboor Kossel Heated Bed upgrade kit
• uses DC so less headache

-Cons

• Requires more Amps thus robust slip ring hardware
• Requires more robust PSU than a power brick(even more so)

AC Bed

+Pros

• Can steal design/specification off from Doron Velta
• uses less amps so slip rings cost less

-Cons

• AC so more ways to fry yourself
• possibly more weight cause silicon heaters tend to be heavy, thus limiting spin

[Blargedy]

I also think a DC bed heater would be best, due to the safer voltage and not needing a high voltage SSR or dealing with mains power.

[jyjblrd]

I'll tell you guys a secret, the printer already has a heated bed. In the video i mentioned I used a PCB for the buildplate, so I was like I might as well add a PCB trace heatbed at the same time. I spent way too much time writing a script to generate PCB traces for arbitrary shapes so I could add the traces to the bed. It even has zone heating and a ring of RGB LEDs, just for the hell of it lol.

I never bothered to actually connect it up though, but I may at some point.

cc: @Blargedy @Thefonze74065 @TheOnlyMann

[jyjblrd]

The PCB files are in the repo if you want to make it yourself, it's obviously untested

[TheOnlyMann]

interesting. I did look up the pcb files but couldn't connect the dots.
that said i think there is still merit to using existing hardware than custom ordering from the shop, so ill still search my endeavors, thanks!

[jyjblrd]

Yeah, if I were to go that route I would use a silicon mains voltage heated bed with a slip ring. The amperage would be low enough to use a small slip ring and circular silicon heat beds are common because delta printers use them. But looks like you guys have already compared the pros/cons of that.

[Blargedy]

Oh cool. I wonder how much it would cost to get this printed. I hesitate at the untested status but I'll look into it.

[jyjblrd]

Prob ~60usd for 5

[TheOnlyMann]

at a unrelated note, would it be possible to replace the ball bearings used for a angular contact ball bearings
7008ACBearings for example