Polycarbonate Recirculation Ender PC mods Stage1

thingiverse

Print Polycarbonate or other materials with 300°C on a cheap machine like this Ender3. Recirculate air from the heatsink, to heat an enclosure and prevent warping. This stage one is fully working, but it can be seen as a bootstrap: You will get a bad print first without these mods and it will enable you to get a better print next time, and to build Stage2: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4770836 Generally speaking, printing PC is really a pain, but it could be usefull for printing functional prototypes. You still need some kind of housing, or, at least a hood, to keep things warm. Ambient temperature is more important here than usually. I use to set the outlet of the heatsink to 100 °C, which is still fine with the bowden tube and it gives a minimum of about 60°C on the edges of the buildplate. It also preheats your material a bit, or cools it when you turn up the fan for PLA printing. Consider this to be a very good effect when retracting PLA! It's a good idea to start printing smaller parts, heating up the room while getting bigger. layeradhesion often lacks, when printing to cold or when the object needs too much moves in y-direction. but it's really possible to print objects, let's say half the size of the buildplate, with this bulletproof polymer. suggested settings: -minimal infill as supports, alligned (in cura infill "lines" put one angle in "infill line directions") -min 3 perimeters to keep in some warmth -always lift head while travelling -cura->print settings(3bars_menu:expert view)->experimental->"SLICINGTOLLERANCE: EXCLUSIVE" is mandatory for good fittings and threads to print in the right dimensions hardware requirements: -a good mainboard with 2nd hotend terminals for the radial fan and -2nd temp sensor (same as hotend) -use a fuse! you need to print at 299°C (silicone insulations are not rated to this) -update or compile the Marlin firmware (i use a bigtree SKR1.3) -heatbreak without teflon inlay -and of course stay in place (heating failures are likely to occure) sadly there are some problems in the latest Cura 4.7 with profiles, you might have to install 4.6.x if you want to use my included settings download: https://github.com/Ultimaker/Cura/releases/tag/4.6.2 finally, one sure advantage, is a way much faster heating of the bed. please leave Feedback if you're unhappy, or have a happy printing!