Quote Originally Posted by pjfossee View Post
I just graduated high school and am moving on to college in a few months. I have a 12" i3v and I'd like to bring it with me. My roommate likes 3d printing as well so he's ok with this. However, for his sake and my sake, I'd like to build an enclosure for the printer. Its dimensions would be about 24" wide x 24' tall x 30 " deep. My hope is that it will minimize the sound level from the printer, allow a higher ambient temperature in the enclosure for better ABS prints, and possibly filter the ABS smell or vent it out somewhere. I'm also planning on adding an octopi setup. Anyways, I had a few questions.

The first is should I add additional heating to the enclosure or will the 12" bed be enough?

Second, how hot should the enclosure get with the stepper motors inside it? I will be able to move the electronics outside the enclosure but I don't believe that will be possible with the stepper motors.

Third, I was considering using peltier thermo coolers to cool the stepper motors and as a byproduct add additional heat to the enclosure. They are about 5 amps each but would run off of a separate power supply from the printer's. Is this feasible?

Lastly, for filtering the ABS fumes, I'd like to at least eliminate the smell if not the nanoparticles too. What, if any, kind of filter material would you recommend? Activated carbon, HEPA, anything else? I envisioned a fan blowing the fumes through the filter.

Thanks!
I made enclosures for both my printers, 8" i3v and a 10" Pegasus. they were made from fairly cheap materials, 3/4"x 1/16" aluminum angle from the hardware store, Foamboard with aluminum foil glued to the inside and some corner peices I designed and printed. I have not had a need to add any additional heating to them the heated bed gets the insides plenty warm. My printers live in the garage which is thankfully heated and insulated but I don't keep the heat up too high, 40F in the winter. I have not had any issues with the steppers nor the electronics getting too hot. I did relocate the power supply to outside the thermal envelope so it can breathe cooler outside air and so as not to cause any odd air currents inside the enclosure. I posted some pictures a while back but I can't seem to find the post.