3D Printing Enclosure electronics

The Rocketry Forum

Help Support The Rocketry Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Wallace

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 16, 2017
Messages
2,514
Reaction score
468
Just picked up a controller board from JKTech to control the electronics I plan on installing in my half finished enclosure. It's gonna have dual 120mm low rpm (silent) fans in a push/pull configuration with a Hepa and activated charcoal filter. Temp/humidity sensors and a buttload of led lighting. Pretty sure I'll also add a small dehumidifier in the filament (3 spools currently, but have room for 3 more if I deem it necessary) section. Should be able to operate the whole mess whilst keeping the electronics separate from my printer controls, probably over WiFi for convenience. Just waiting for the rest of the parts that are allegedly on the slow boat from China. It's, at least for now, gonna contain my cobbled Ender 3/A10M machine for printing higher temp stuff. Looks like a pretty sweet system for a reasonable price. https://www.jktech.si/en/store/**FU...ainboard-DIY-Enclosure-files-plans-p142928919
 
Last edited:
Just picked up a controller board from JKTech to control the electronics I plan on installing in my half finished enclosure. It's gonna have dual 120mm low rpm (silent) fans in a push/pull configuration with a Hepa and activated charcoal filter. Temp/humidity sensors and a buttload of led lighting. Pretty sure I'll also add a small dehumidifier in the filament (3 spools currently, but have room for 3 more if I deem it necessary) section. Should be able to operate the whole mess whilst keeping the electronics separate from my printer controls, probably over WiFi for convenience. Just waiting for the rest of the parts that are allegedly on the slow boat from China. It's, at least for now, gonna contain my cobbled Ender 3/Geeetech A10M machine for printing higher temp stuff. Looks like a pretty sweet system for a reasonable price. Only took 11 days to get here from whoknowswheresville and I think he might be running a sale right now also. https://www.jktech.si/en/store/**FU...ainboard-DIY-Enclosure-files-plans-p142928919
 
Last edited:
Chuck: It's all in the BOM. If it's not on his website, I'll find and post it. It's all basically dirt cheap if you don't mind waiting for China shipping. If Ya just can't wait, everything is available Amazon prime for triple the cost..I'll look into it when I get home.
 
Look at the Ikea Lack table stuff on Thingiverse if Ya wanna go the cheap route.
 
Chuck: It's all in the BOM. If it's not on his website, I'll find and post it. It's all basically dirt cheap if you don't mind waiting for China shipping. If Ya just can't wait, everything is available Amazon prime for triple the cost..I'll look into it when I get home.

Ok, so you are building his enclosure. Nice. It is not a cheap build.
 
Like I said, Ikea Lack tables are cheap (as in under 10 bucks) and while they will take some time and effort, are not a bad setup. I don't have 200 to 300 dollars to throw at extrusions and lexan no matter how cool they look.
 
Last edited:
Lack tables are what I used. Please do a build thread. I am interested in following.
 
I'll show you what I have so far, and what I've planned. I do have a tendency to get sidetracked and change plans on a somewhat regular basis though.
 
Here's a few pics of what I have to date. It's gonna be a triple stack of sorts, the first (or bottom) being nothing more than the Lack table top with adjustable felt padded feet. Since I don't want the printer on the bottom, for ease of access 20191210_065115.jpg 20191210_065022.jpg and also don't want to populate the top I'm devising a way to feed filament from the lower section whilst (hopefully) keeping everything internal. Idea is to make it look like a nice piece of furniture to keep the Woman happy. Btw. you're actually looking at what would be the underside of these Lack table tops after assembly. Rolled on a quickie coat of leftover from who knows what white latex we had laying around. figured since I'll have a bunch of led strips under there it should reflect better. My eyesight is awful so I need all the help I can manage to build into it. 16.3 feet of 6000K led strip w/dimmer/power supply on Amazon for something like 12 bucks. Gotta have the higher Kelvin rating personally, yellowish light may as well be no light at all.
 
Last edited:
Some things I've found on Thingiverse to help guide the filament. The spring loaded 608 bearing(ed) spool holders just drop into the hangers shown in the previous pic. Pretty cool design, keeps the slack out for the long path to the direct drive extruder. The other stuff is for wiring and filament pass through.20191210_065703.jpg 20191210_065719.jpg
 
Gotta love the 608 style bearings.( Thank you skateboarders) In bulk on Amazon they're around 18 cents each. While obviously not top quality, they're plenty good enough for this kinda junk.
 
Last edited:
Also; You'll quickly discover when working with sub $10.00 tables, they are incredibly flimsy. Don't expect to just go screwing things in wherever Ya want, no matter what Youtube gurus "show" you. Gotta use the 'Ol noodle to make it work...Hint: Rocketpoxy is your friend;)
 
Last edited:
Here's a few pics of the mess that's going in there..As you've probably noticed, I have a rather severe lack of focus and organizational skills20191210_084602.jpg 20191210_084728.jpgo_O
 
Last edited:
That controller is a BTT TFT 3.5. "IF" it works as advertised should be pretty cool. Allows both customize-able touch screen and 12864 lcd in one unit. Firmware updates through SD card. I know they had issues with the original units, but the one I have is a later version, so hopefully the bugs have been worked out. BTT updates their Github fairly regularly so "shouldn't" be a major problem to get 'er working. As with all this cheap Chinesium stuff, you take your chances, but for what I think was 28 bucks vs 19 for a standard 12864 I just couldn't resist.
 
Last edited:
And; That's just an 80mm fan I pulled out of an old junk Vista tower. No point in undercooling electronics, especially when it's essentially free. Intent is to keep the goodies out of the hot zone. The electronics box is on Thingiverse, titled "La Bota". Great design that's intended to contain mainboard, a Pi and power supply vertically in a nice compact neat looking piece. I scaled mine a bit in the Z axis to allow for the larger fan.
 
I guess I should also mention that the board is an SKR mini E3. 32 Bit vs 8 is a no brainer. And when you can buy the board with embedded 2209 stepper drivers for less than the cost of the sticks themselves....
 
20191215_103134.jpg 20191215_103146.jpg 20191215_103247.jpg Just a few progress pics. Gonna cut some holes for filament pass-through s, then add the 3rd deck after the glue sets up. In other words, the first deck is finalized. Just need to work out filament path(s) and wiring pass throughs..
 
Last edited:
Pretty sure I'm just gonna go with magnet mounted panels (not sure what material yet) on at least 2 sides for access. The back will be 1 solid piece covering all for sway/stiffness..
 
Hoping to have less than 50 bucks into the whole mess when done. That's not counting all my re-purposed crap.
 
Everything I've tested to date has worked flawlessly. Even daisychained 4 total PWM PST 120mm fans and it runs 'em w/out issue. Only regret I have is following Jure's BOM to the letter (he's pretty much maxed out everything power wise to keep costs down) and as it turns out, addressable LEDs are power hungry and he's got it set up for a total of 30, arrayed in two 15 count strips, which is fine for the printer bay itself. Since my enclosure is 2 tiered I need at least double the lighting for the lower electronics/dehumidifier/filament bay. He was bright enough to make this easy by adding an onboard 12 volt out to control a higher amp outboard 5 volt converter, but I'll still need a bigger power supply since the one from the BOM is only 5 amps. All of these "issues" are my fault though, should have done a bit more research before blindly ordering parts. The onboard 5 volt buck converter is only rated for 3 amps max 2 continuous and the 30 LEDs I have draw 1.5 amps alone @ 100% brightness. Bottom line is I''m gonna try running it as is with the addition of a heat sink and 40mm fan on the buck converter, keep an eye on temps and see what happens, before buying more stuff. I'd say you'd have a hard time coming up with a better/more cost effective system than this for the total investment in time and materials.20200114_200144.jpg
 
Last edited:
Here's a fine example of what you probably should not do. Was in the process of mocking up/testing some sensors, working on the floor due to the completely unruly nest of snakes wiring harness mess...Got distracted and walked away. Came back into the room an hour or so later and felt/heard a somewhat disturbing crunching sound. Yup, I broke it, actually couldn't imagine breaking it in a less desirable spot, I could live with a cracked screen but the total loss of functionality is well...still gives home screen but touch function is a big negative. Tried re-loading the firmware and it went to 2% and froze. Paid $21.00 straight from China but it took a good 6 weeks to arrive. Since I'm getting soooo close to assembling everything I really don't care to wait for another 6 or so weeks. Jumped on Amazon and quickly discovered it'd cost 40ish bucks to get the exact same TFT in a day or 2, so that option was nixed. Thought about it for a minute, then went to Ebay. Found a new in box one from someones project that never happened for Buy it now price of $25.00, so naturally I clicked on the Buy it now tab. Guaranteed delivery date w/free "standard" (whatever the h*@^ that means) delivery by next Tuesday. So, don't be like me, I guess is the pointo_O...20200116_052730.jpg
 
Got my "new" TFT screen, got everything working on the bench and found a few spare minutes to make some progress. After seeing what 30 total 5 volt RGB Leds put out, I wasn't exactly impressed. Since I can barely see as it is, I broke down and blew 12 whole dollars on a 16' string of white dimmable 12 volt standalone Leds. Obviously dove into 'er headfirst with no plan whatsoever, just started peeling and sticking until I ran out (actually cut off 3 individual lights cuz I ran outta space. Got some other stuff mounted and some wiring roughed in too. Might actually 20200126_102642.jpg 20200126_103208 (1).jpg 20200126_103226.jpg have it working by the time it gets warm out and I don't need ito_O
 
Back
Top