Lulzbot Mini in an Enclosure

After a week of playing around with my Lulzbot Mini (excelent machine guys!), I started working on more challenging prints (larger surfaces). This is when I ran into some minor issues: minor warping of abs and visible ridges as a result of cool air drafts whenever I open the cabinet (in which my Lulzbot is placed) to check on the print.

As a test I’ve built a enclosure around the Mini to prevent air drafts and rapid cooling down. I noticed much better prints, so so far so good.

But due to the higher temperatures in the enclosure, I now :question: worry about overheating of the Mini (especially it’s motors). What does Lulzbot (Aleph Objects) advice about these kinds of things? Is an enclosure advisable? Or should I take the minor ABS issues for granted to make sure the printer won’t overheat?

Using an enclosure is ok, Lulzbot uses them to print the parts they make machines with and they get up to about 40 C inside sometimes.

https://forum.lulzbot.com/t/printer-enclosure-importance-of-enclosure-temperature/563/1

I use a cardboard box tightly fit over the printer with no adverse effects except much improved prints when printing larger stuff… Shouldn’t be an issue.


-Jim