Prusa XL enclosure

[Sophie]

I've been to day one of the TCT3SIXTY expo (https://tct3sixty.com/) at Birmingham NEC UK today, which is "The UK's definitive industrial 3D printing and additive manufacturing event" and saw Prusa had a stand there and yes they were displaying their XL in all its 5 tool glory. I asked them about a fit for purpose enclosure that wasn't third party or something you have to make yourself, and they commented, off the record, look out for an announcement this week.

I can't find anything online by Prusa specifically, so I'll be interested to see what they come up with. And this is not the concertina shroud that was originally advertised apparently. 

So yea, keep your eyes peeled everyone. 

[Alan B]

An enclosure is much more than the Draft Shield they showed early on. 

It will be interesting to see what they come up with. Their enclosure for the MK4 is massive. The XL is already massive, an enclosure with sufficient room for the umbilicals may be difficult to relocate without disassembly.

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[Sophie]

Yea I think it's going to be massive. Especially as the guy on the stand hinted that the filament reels will stay on the inside!

[3D Printing Tips and Tricks]

If I designed an enclosure for the XL, I’d have the spools mounted in their own dark,  dry box above the enclosure thereby shortening the ridiculously long guide tubes. Hmmm… maybe I should do that.

[Jody Harris]

https://blog.prusa3d.com/we-are-expanding-our-enclosure-family_97833/

Think carefully

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[3D Printing Tips and Tricks]

Hmmm… looks ok. The filament is not within the enclosure.

[Ed Street]

I mostly use ABS and ASA, both of which require an enclosure. This makes the Prusa XL non-usable and worthless for me.  Also in that excluded range would be nearly all manufacturing and engineering facilities as they use heavy volumes of ABS. 

[Alan B]

The new Prusa XL enclosure appears to be about as small and light as they could make it. A combination of the draft shield they showed early on and a top hat. Interesting. Who is going to go for it??

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[Sophie]

Huh, it's not at all what I was expecting. And also did not expect to see the concertina shroud (or bellows cover) included as part of the enclosure. It's not the worst thing ever, but I've seen a couple of community made enclosures that I prefer the look of. Been following this guy for a while... https://forum.prusa3d.com/forum/original-prusa-xl-tool-changer-user-mods-octoprint-enclosures-nozzles/ideas-to-make-enclosure-for-xl-multi-tool/paged/10/

He's been working on it for what feels like forever, and it is a little overkill, but it's been interesting watching it develop. 

[Sophie]

Ooh my message got deleted...

Is there an auto delete bot on here? 

I tried to post a link to another enclosure that I've been following closely over the last 8 months or so....

Also commented regarding the Prusa enclosure, looks alright I guess, was surprised to see the shroud (or bellows) included. Also at that price, especially as it doesn't even come assembled (which makes sense for shipping, but still means time and effort required) would have liked to have seen a couple more features such as camera, tool holder, or at least features to optionally add these things on easily, and maybe an alternative spool holder for tpu on the top.

On Thursday, June 6, 2024 at 8:03:08 PM UTC+1 Ed Street wrote:

[Sophie]

Do you know why my messages keep being deleted? No expletives or off topic discussion :(

[Sophie]

Is the troll bored yet or are they still auto deleting posts?

On Thursday, June 6, 2024 at 8:03:08 PM UTC+1 Ed Street wrote:

[TobyCWood]

Sorry Sophie I check the forum right after breakfast each day and saw your yanked posts in the moderation list. No idea why the posts were yanked. In fact in the group settings I have moderation completely turned off!

I was tempted to get the enclosure then I realized two things…1. I really don’t need it. I don’t print abs, hips or asa in my xl. And 2. It will easily inhibit access all around the top area. I find I constantly have to have easy access to all the tops of the tools and the guide tubes.

[Sophie]

Oh hey look there's all my messages!!

Dang I don't know if we'll get one of these at the hackspace for our XL...it's a lot of money for mostly hassle, but on the flip side people (including me) are interested in printing the more exotic materials. And to be honest, if we procured and made our own, that process and cost and time probably would work out about the same anyways... I wish the top was more like a clamshell to allow maximum access, but it would mean requiring a lot of space around the machine. I'll propose it to the community but I'm not sure what the democracy vote will be. Especially as we haven't used the XL in anger yet and haven't experienced the pain of having to tinker with the tool heads yet, so that need for good easy quick access isn't yet a high priority for our users...give it time lol.

[Kurt Gluck]

I am thinking of getting the enclosure.  Most likely to print Nylon, perhaps Carbon Fiber,  more importantly I do have concerns about house air impacts from printing, though you cant use the enclosure for PLA.

Anyone considering the enclosure should read: 

https://help.prusa3d.com/guide/4-nextruder-upgrade-multi-tool_690321?

And

https://help.prusa3d.com/guide/3-printer-upgrade_668674

For those of us where printing stuff is the hobby, perhaps designing stuff, but building and modifying printers is not - this will be a significant investment of time.  I purchased the so called assembled five toolhead - I say so called because any one who bought the ‘assembled’, who again is focused on just having a printer and not that experienced found that though the documentation was excellent and the chat at least reachable, and the facebook group good - it was a lot of work.   ANY way as you can see from the above pair of documents there is a significant amount of disassembling things that I for one never put together. 

ALSO if you are considering a 3rd party enclosure for your XL, or perhaps even designing one for yourself, the above guides will show you lots of parts of the printer that are NOT ready for higher temperatures without replacement.   The prusa enclosure comes with the needed parts - and I understand that if you are rolling your own, the designs for all those parts are available so you can spend your time printing them instead of purchasing them …

The fact that the spools are outside the enclosure looks to me (who knows next to nothing) like a good idea since you would probably want to print lots of filaments out of dry boxes or dryers.   

The way to get TPU to work with all of this sounds like a possible Pulitzer Prize winner, if they gave these for wanted to be read documents about 3d printing. 

Kurt-A

[3D Printing Tips and Tricks]

FYI Kurt…

You don’t need to heat soak… that is enclose a printer… for Nylon… or a carbon fiber included material such as nylon. Most nylon these days won’t  shrink nearly as much as they used to as with Taulman 618.

You do need to heat soak ABS,HIPS, some PCs, and ASA.

An enclosure though is still quite useful even if you don’t need to heat soak especially if your printer is in an unheated  garage in the winter. I’m still thinking about it. I think we have till the 21st… or was it July 21st… to decide..

[3D Printing Tips and Tricks]

And also…

I tried printing Nylon 910 with my XL. The nylon did NOT like the larger .6 mm nozzles. Not at all.

[Niels Wullems]

The whole enclosure feels like an afterthought, "dang, people print more than PLA and PETG on our printers..."

It's design seems cumbersome and impractical.

Not to mention it's ridiculous expensive for an already expensive printer.

It's a missed opportunity to not have designed the printer for enclosing from scratch.

The Mk4 enclosure looks cool, although it makes the printer look big and out of proportion.

[James Fackert]

ddontforgetthatnylonlovesmoisture.Gottadryffilamentwelltoprint,butthenthepartwillnotthavefullstrengthtillitabsorbssomemoisture.

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[3D Printing Tips and Tricks]

Yeah… right… moisture…

No. It’s not moisture. Nylon behaves very differently than all other materials. 

[Kurt Gluck]

I don’t know if you saw my post after your show.  I purchased some talman 910 as they have a 70% discount probably on their remainder stock.  Never did nylon but 70% is a lot off

I am sure the rebuilding of the printer for the enclosure will be nothing for you and daunting for me

Hoping you get it so that when I am stuck I can ask

Kurt-a

On Jun 17, 2024, at 10:31 AM, 3D Printing Tips and Tricks <3d-printing-...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Yeah… right… moisture…

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[3D Printing Tips and Tricks]

I’ll probably get it. I currently have only one machine that’s fully enclosed out of about 15 machines; the Raise3d n2. Due to the enclosure it’s actually used quite a bit more than the other machines.and as such has paid for itself more than a dozen times. I doubt it will be all that hard to build it, but with Prusa you never know. E.g. the fiasco one goes through to clear the tool sensor!

[Randy Zimmer]

re: nylon and moisture. D570 says 7% 

The Taulman stuff I bought popped and spit like crazy the day I opened up the bag. 

Works good in the weed-eater.

Here's some charts.

https://laminatedplastics.com/nylon.pdf
https://omnexus.specialchem.com/polymer-property/water-absorption-24-hours

[3D Printing Tips and Tricks]

I’ve kept what is now my last spool of 910 out on my rep2 for well over a year. It makes a bit of noise at first but eventually it goes deeper into the spool and it stops.

Moisture in your filament is a function of where you live. I live in a semi arid place. Moisture rarely impacts my filament unless we’re talking about PVA. That stuff gets impacted fast no matter where you live.

[Kurt Gluck]

No reason with Prusa’s enclosure you couldnt do that.   Before starting to design your own enclosure you may want to read the upgrade manuals with Prusa’s enclosure - there are significant parts of the printer that they have you change out as the material they used was not tempature resistant enough.  From what I see on the XL facebook group I am in, they are not making this up.  All the parts are included with their enclosure but if you want to roll your own they have the STLs on printables.com.    Also Prusas enclosure is not passive it has a fan and the printer and the enclosure seem to interact through the latest printer firmware.    The good news is it seems that printers that they are shipping now seem to have less work - the bad news is that it is a significant amount of taking stuff apart and replacing it for folks like me who bought the ‘assembled’ printer.   

Kurt-A

Links to Prusas instructions for installing the enclosure. 

https://help.prusa3d.com/guide/4-nextruder-upgrade-multi-tool_690321?

https://help.prusa3d.com/guide/3-printer-upgrade_668674

[3D Printing Tips and Tricks]

Kurt

I finally looked through those two procedures. Why am I not surprised?! The enclosure upgrade is a BFD. ALL the printed parts within all five tools have to be swapped out with replacements. Each Nextruder is almost completely torn down and rebuilt! The enclose itself requires the installer to add cabling and parts all over the place! Then afterward since you tore apart each tool you then have to do the entire setup and adjustments! The amount of time and work involved way outweighs the monetary cost.

More proof of just how short sighted Josef Prusa is. Not too sure I want to bother with it now.