3D Printing in Winter

I had previously suffered some disillusion over a very low success rate with the 3D printer but I've had quite a run of success over the summer. Oddly, I had my first unsuccessful print the other day, completely out of the blue. The next print was fine but it got me wondering as to why.

Generally the 3D printer is fairly tolerant but I noted that the failed print happened right when the temperature dropped outside. The printer is upstairs in my den but it is next to the most northerly corner of the house and there is this point in the year when the temperature drops but it isn't cold enough to put the heating on.

Reading the label on the next bottle of resin I noted that it said that it works best between 25 and 30 degrees centigrade and we were definitely no longer that warm so what to be done? Reviewing the Facebook support group for my printer I noted that someone had used reptile heaters to heat the printer. You can get ones with thermostats built in but they appeared to have limited control.

In the end I elected to purchase a device that is basically a control box that has a thermometer on a cable and two mains sockets to turn the heaters on and off. I also purchased two small reptile heaters. I then had to drill some holes and into the printer to feed the cables without fouling the lid or any internal mechanisms. The reptile heaters were glued to the inside sides of the printer and the thermometer is glued to the back. All this is carried out with the Bosch cordless glue gun which is in itself a fantastic piece of kit.

Now I can set the temperature to be maintained between 26 and 28 degrees centigrade and if I put it on far enough in advance the resin will be at a suitable temperature for printing. It would benefit from more heat, these reptile pads are only 5W each but the next size up would not fit. It took a few hours the first day but the second day it hadn't cooled off that much and was up to temperature within 90 minutes. At 10W total it could be left on all day. That's less power than this computer uses and 0.3% of our kettle.