1

Lets start by saying I understand its silly but thought I would ask to get more community feed back.

A custom of mine wants to make a couple enclosures. These parts are extremely large and after they looked up the build volume of the printer he gave me a design that would fill the entire build volume.

Think ‘print a rectangle solid or not’…

Why would you NOT do this… Customers materials selectionis ABS and we don’t have an enclosure (not even a cardboard box at the moment).

2 Likes
2

you cant print abs with no enclosure or that big,as steven says pass it on

or you could cut the model up and glue it together again

3

The chances of your print lifting and having layer separation gets exponentially worse with size. If they insist on a large solid object, try putting a normal fan driven heater next to your printer blowing over the bed, I use that with my Mini Kossel and find it works very well like that for large/high prints

4

Sorry, what is being asked? “You can’t print a full “cuboid” using 100% of your print volume in ABS as you don’t have an enclosed/heated print space to stop warp and shrinkage?”

If you are confident you could not print something so large in ABS you would have to decline the order with that reason, or recommend another suitable material that is less likely to warp at those sizes such as PETG?

Hope I have understood your question correctly?

Steve

5

Hello Gunner0352,

in general it is not a good idea to print long and flat objects in ABS if you don’t have an enclosed heated chamber. Just try printing the first 10 layers to see how much the sides curl up. In such cases it’s better to use PETG instead. It has less warping. The downside is the the supports adhere a little better to your part. For enclosures shouldn’t be much of a problem. Cheers.

6

I would like to avoid an ABS vrs PLA or PETG discussion here, but I would ask the customer why they have chosen ABS.

Is there a hinge or snap together parts? Will it be sitting in heat, like the back seat of a car? Does it need to flex?

If the answer is no, then I would ask the customer to look at alternative material.

PLA and PETG crystalize better right out of the nozzle, so warpage and shrinkage is less of a problem.

I hate to say this, but does it even make sense for this enclosure to be 3d pritned? I recently got an inquiry for a really big 3d printed box. Just a box.

I asked the customer why they did not just want to have someone cut the box on a cnc machine or laser and glue it together?

7

Thanks all. I did inform my customer of the issues. My recommendation to him is to have it made of plexy. He can cut it to his spec easily and at very low cost. It is only for design review anyway. No fine details.

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Hi Matthew, if the size doesn’t exceed 50 x 46 x 46 inch, I might be able to print it for you. Drop me a line if interested.

Best regards,

Val

9

I second you with regards to the PETG. Not so much the PLA.