[cassianoleal]

Prusa are pretty much plug and play these days, especially the Core One line-up.

You're right that they're expensive but you get free human support 24x7, you get an open platform, lots of contributions to open source (even Bambu Studio is a fork of Prusa Slicer), and they pretty much go on forever.

My Core One+ started its life as an original MK3 and went through each iteration of upgrades, and it works like new. I'm now waiting for an INDX upgrade for it.

IMO the main drawback of consumer Prusa offerings is the lack of good chamber heating for more advanced materials. I can print PC on my Core One+ in the summer with the chamber at 45℃ (good enough for most uses, but 60 would be better), but in the winter it becomes a lot harder.

The Core One L is supposedly better in that regard but I've seen reports that it's still not ideal.

Other than that, I feel the extra cash pays itself back in the long run.

[DoctorOetker]

Is there any guidance on improving the Core One chamber? I would like to add some thermal insulation around the chamber, but I'm not sure if the firmware will properly detect unexpected thermal insulation in problematic scenario's, if it blindly assumes its a stock Core One... the more you modify a printer, the more it operates in terra incognita.

Could too much thermal insulation cause the bed temperature to lower (to avoid overheating chamber temp) to the point the print no longer adheres? etc.

If you could recommend some articles on the subject I would highly appreciate it.

[eemil]

> Could too much thermal insulation cause the bed temperature to lower (to avoid overheating chamber temp) to the point the print no longer adheres? etc.

I've insulated my Core One specifically to reduce noise, vibration, and improve high-temp printing and learned that:

1. When printing at high temperatures, you don't have to worry about overheating. Chamber fans are plenty capable of cooling the printer down.

2. There are so many nooks, crannies, thermal bridges, and gaps that modifying the printer to add insulation is a fool's errand. You will spend a lot of effort for little gain. If I were to buy another Core One, the only thing I would do again is damping pads in a couple areas to reduce resonance caused by the flat steel panels.

3. That being said, insulating the core one externally by covering it with a "jacket" of insulation or placing it in an enclosed(ish) space is very easy and effective. In an enclosed space, you need to make sure the chamber fans exhaust out, so they can retain control of the environment. You don't want it to be a fully closed system.

For point 3, these days I literally throw a beach towel on my Core One when printing high-temp filaments. It covers the top, front, and sides. This is enough insulation for 55C printing (the maximum allowed by hardware/firmware) and is easy to remove when I don't need it. Of course there are plenty of more suitable materials you could use, from textiles to foamboard insulation. But the concept is the same.

[throwaway219450]

> Could too much thermal insulation cause the bed temperature to lower (to avoid overheating chamber temp) to the point the print no longer adheres? etc.

That would depend how much "safety" is built into the control system.

The simplest solution I've seen is taping up the edges of the enclosure where you find gaps, to prevent heat escaping.

If it's only PID-ing the bed, the ambient temperature shouldn't matter. Less work to do for the bed heater. On the nozzle, it's similar. A 40 C increase in ambient temperature isn't much compared to the 150 C+ that the control system is maintaining. Since the active parts of the printer must be capable of running at the target chamber temperature, there should be no risk unless you exceed it. The question is really, is the printer designed to operate continuously with a chamber of X C?

However... the risk would be that if it's too well insulated there isn't a good way for the system to cool quickly if it needs to, or if it somehow messes with what the control system is tuned for. On the older printers you could re-calibrate the PID loops to your specific hardware and environment. The newer 32-bit firmware seems to not require user tuning at all. Similarly with full enclosures, you might worry about the power supply or other electronics which aren't meant to be run at high ambient (maybe fine though).

You could also look at a separate solution like enclosing the printer in well-insulated chamber, and aiming to keep that outer space above ambient. That would be a good option if you're expecting a big thermal gradient to your workspace, like an unheated garage in winter.

But lots of questions really. Do you want to run at a high chamber temp? Are you running in a cold environment and having problems? Trying to save power? These are different scenarios.

[m4rtink]

Yep - indeed one important issue people often forget with enclosures is that any non trivial components that end up inside the heated enclosure need to be able to safely continue working at the increased air temperature inside + any heat they or other parts of the printer generate that affects them.

If you steppers are already hot at 22 degrees of room temperature, they might end up damaged if air is at 45 degrees + are in use and generate their own heat.

[cassianoleal]

Mine is more or less stock. I've been searching for an existing mod but haven't really found one. A good start is probably to plug all the little leakage points around the corners and unused rivet/bolt holes.

The main issue is how close the walls are to the bed, which makes a lot of insulation projects dead in the water. If a radiator reflector foil [0] can be made to fit, it might help quite a bit as well.

Other than that, proper active chamber heating is really where we should be heading. When I have the time I might attempt to replace the left panel with one.

[0] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Radiator-Reflective-Thermal-Heating...

[Jabdoa2]

You can insulate the chamber. That works fine. There is a vent on top which is open in case the printer needs lower temps. For everything else it will turn on the chamber fan. The parameters are tunable in the menu (or via G-Code).

[cassianoleal]

Any tips on insulating the chamber?

[21asdffdsa12]

Plexiglas + styroafoam?

[f1shy]

We could search in the source, but I’m 99.999% sure it is a PID, because of course has to work in different environments. So I do not think it should be a problem.

[CarVac]

I put a blanket on in the winter. In the summer it's not really necessary, the chamber can hit 70c which triggers a cool-down.

[BoredPositron]

I am still a bit iffy about the whole sending out fleets of 100s of printers to influencers during the pandemic while also increasing the price for their entry lineup.

[2muchcoffeeman]

Wow, that’s a lot of money on upgrades. I also got the MK3 and upgraded it once.

Full upgrade to the core one will be AUD$2k

I can keep my current printer alive for a long time. But it’s hard to justify the cost.

[sleight42]

How do you upgrade a Mk3 to a Core One?

[hellweaver666]

You upgrade the Mk3 to a Mk3s, upgrade the Mk3S to the Mk4, upgrade the Mk4 to the Mk4s and the Mk4s to the Core One.

Prusa sell upgrade kits for each generation of printer.

If you were to do it all in one go it would require replacing the same components multiple times and would be insanely expensive and time consuming but if you upgrade as the product evolves its not a big deal (I recently upgraded my Mk4 to a Mk4s and I'll probably jump to the Core One in the coming year if I have some free time).

[sleight42]

Ah nuts. And here I have a 3s+ and then I "upgraded" to an X1C.