Hi guys. I have a Flashforge Creator Pro and whilst it has a few bits of perspex to keep heat in, it’s just not good enough!! I’m trying to print some pretty large bits of kit, both for home and work - we’re talking 7 inches wide, 5 inches deep and some odd inches high (why in inches I have no idea!). Parts are just warping/cracking here there and everywhere.
Had a chat with a Stratasys engineer last week, he mentioned the Mojo printer had a heated build chamber to combat this problem. Found the patent!! US6722872B1 - High temperature modeling apparatus - Google Patents
My question - has anyone actually done this themselves yet? I’m thinking a ceramic heating element and maybe an Arduino nano, DS18B20 temperature sensor, and a relay to flick the heater on and off.
The temperatures on the patent look kinda high but not insane (about 70-90° C). I’d be tempted to leave the heated bed at around 50° C to help out.
What do we think?
2 Likes
Flashforge is Makerbot clone. For reduced price you get reduced printer…
Makerbot Z18 have heated chamber too and problems like you encounter can overcome.
Did you try using different materials?
Also you can adjust bed temperature - either in custom profile or by srceen settings (I’m not sure if they are supported in Flashforge).
With some pics of your model maybe we can come up with more suggestions.
The Creator Pro, whilst being a rip-off of the original Makerbot Replicator, has a whole host of tweaks/upgrades/mods which set it above it’s predecessor. The fact it’s cheaper really doesn’t come into play here.
I’m printing with ABS at the moment as I need the part to stand up to temperatures around 80° C. I have toyed with the build plate temperature but it’s just not keeping the large layers over an inch above the build plate hot enough to prevent warping. On smaller prints this is never an issue as theres not the same shrink tension on the part. I am using a glass build plate which is going to be killing some of the heat radiated - which is why the idea of heating the whole chamber seems so good.
So I hooked up an Arduino and temperature probe to my printer this evening. Read off the live data as it was printing away. With the bed at 110° C, the hottest temperature the chamber achieved was 52° C. I’ll set up a few of these probes to map the thing over the next week. Shed some light on where is hot, and where is not.
- Andy
P.S. The Disney and hairspray belong to the missus (honest!!)
Hello
have you tryed smart abs to fight the battle of shrinking? I assume you dont want to use pla.
i can do 220mm x 100mm x 40mm partson my flashforge creator pro.
anssi
Get a piece of PEI and glue it to your glass bed and shim (PEI will bow if its not glued to something)
Even cheap Shaxon ABS from Frys will stick to a super thin coat of abs slurry and PEI plate
Always preheat and let the part cool before trying to remove it.
I have an X with a front door only. I find that a front door is enough to keep the heat in with the top open. Many with the Pro will leave the top open just a little bit to keep from cooking the machine. Check out this link… FlashForge Dreamer X Axis Carriage by BaronWilliams - Thingiverse A few people have melted the Dreamer carriage with excessive heat. One guy moved all of the steppers to the outside of the machine to build his heated chamber. Small thin wall parts are an issue in heated machines. I have to print at least 4 small parts to give them a chance to cool down before the next layer is applied.
So, I suggest printing a backup carriage before attempting to build a heated chamber.
100 * for bed
285* for head
3d lac on the glass bed
and you do not need nothing more
normal abs, if you want to be really sure use hips with same temperatures
3DKEV
8
What I sometimes do is ad some discs on the corners of the STL file at the bottom, to prevent warping.
Not sure is your design allows it, but maybe you can break up your STL file, print it in parts and glue/klick it back together?
I noticed once that using ABS Slurry at 80C gave a super strong stick to the glass bed. It’s just hot enough to dry out the acetone, but not hot enough to make it very malleable. The downside is that it’s very hard to remove from the platform after the print. But if the bed adhesion is correct, it should make the rest of the printing easier.
The higher the print temp the more shrinkage will occur so if you do heat the chamber, you may want to extrude the filament as close to 230C as possible.
When you consider that ABS is going to shrink regardless of if you use a heated chamber or not, post gluing or joining the parts is going to reduce the shrinkage overall and the cross layers will make the part stronger also if joined at 90deg (like plywood). Good luck with whatever you try though 
Hi Andrew,
i ve been printing on multiple creator pros and all have a heated chamber now. We use a combination of a good heating element (500watt) and a controller. Combined with an improved hood that keeps in the heat better.
we also sell these sets, so if you are intersted please let me know.
my experience is that especially with large prints it improves quality by preventing cracks due to the cooling down of the printed object (when not using heated chamber)
regards Barry
I’ve built a chamber for my printrbot and 50c is just too cold. You will need to hit at least 70C. I’ probably going to have to switch to standard electrical portable heater hooked up to a relay controlled by an arduino. I hit 50C with just a hair dryer and no insulation for my acrylic box. I suggest insulating as much of the chamber as possible before trying to add a different heater.
Kzinty
13
Hi Andrew,
Sorry I am rather late to this question. But I see this is a popular question and the answers below with the exception of Barry’s they do not solve the problem.
So for anyone else looking for answers.
Stratasys Dimension printers (the former creme dela creme) which have heated chambers with a separate heater. When printing in ABS the printer will not start until the build chamber is in the neighborhood of 90 C. The parts regardless of size always come out perfect with no cracking.
So anyone planning to build parts that are larger than your average figurine. Say a nice little box for your hamster to build a nest will be very problematic, having many layers separating in the corners. The larger x and y parts are the ones that have the problem. Owls, chess pieces no big deal. The shrink is a percentage so the longer the part the larger the distance is shrinks. The higher the part temperature during the build process the less the percentage and Statasys found that 90 to 95 work best to keep the shrink low but still have good build quality.
Cheers,
Todd
Hello, may u provide any link where one can purchase the heating element and set.
