My previous attempt at building a heated build surface seemed like a success. Then Nophead came along and demonstrated beautiful results with his Kapton/high-temp approach (>100 C) which immediately made my work obsolete. I couldn’t easily achieve temperatures that high without moving to higher voltages, which would then necessitate a redesign of my controller.
This time around, I’m trying the off-the-shelf approach:
- 4×4 flexible silicone rubber heater, 115VAC, with pressure sensitive adhesive on one side, ~$30
- Commercial PID temperature controller, $42
- Type-K thermocouple, ~$6
It’s not the cheapest approach, but it should be a pretty simple system to get up and running, and produce more than enough heat for any printing scenario.
I haven’t yet tried the Auber Instruments controller, but if it works, $40 for PID control seems like a great deal. For the baristas out there, they also sell a kit to upgrade your high-end espresso machine to PID temperature control — awesome!
Grin.. yep thats similar to my backup system I bought A PID controller as backup incase my Extruder controller fails to do the job.
I dont have the neat rubber heatting element though..
I have just got 5M of naked nichrome wire to mess with on backup extruders.. not sure how I will insulate it maybe kapton tape as I didnt get on to well with fire cement and its tendancy to crack.
Tim,
Very cool! I am looking to build a Mendel with the same idea! An 8X8 heater is 48 USD. Not bad at all, Do you have any pictures with the unit up and running? What did you mount the heater to and did you buy the 2.5, 5, or 10 watt system? They all cost the same but is one better than the other? I would like to have a build area that could do PLA as well as ABS. If you could help me with an Mendel heated build area, I would love to post and give you some rec.