We built an enclosure for our Original Prusa i3 MK3 based on an IKEA kitchen cabinet in less than 2 hours (without printing parts) and for a total of 150 EURO (all in). A kitchen cabinet is easy to build, inexpensive and looks professional. It has the right size for 3D printers and fits into any workshop or garage.
Here is a video of the complete built.
CAUTION: The P.I.N.D.A. probe (inductive proximity sensor) on the ORIGINAL Prusa i3 MK3 is temperature sensitive! Using an enclosure and leaving the extruder with the P.I.N.D.A probe close to the print bed when heating it up to 100C for ABS can cause problems that can reach from requiring to make arbitrary huge adjustments to Z for the first layer, up to driving the nozzle into the print bed and destroying the PEI sheet. Do not preheat the enclosure. Place the extruder high above the print bed when heating it up and keep the door of the enclosure open for the first layers. After the first few layers we are closing the door for printing ABS filaments, but keep the door open for the duration of the entire print for printing non ABS filaments. Z adjustments due to the use of different temperatures for the print bed, like changing from PLA to ABS, should only require small Z adjustments in the order of 0.05mm.
With the ORIGINAL Prusa i3 MK3 setup for ABS with an extruder temperature of 255C and a bed temperature of 100C, the inside of the enclosure will heat up to a 40C and humidity will go down to 10% (at a room temperature of 20C with 25% humidity).
We purchased a kitchen cabinet and a LED light from IKEA www.ikea.com for 106 EURO:
– METOD base cabinet frame white 60x60x60cm Article no: 002.461.20: 23 EURO
– SAVEDAL glass door white 30x60cm Article no: 802.930.23: 2x 20 EURO
– UTRUSTA hinge 125 Article no: 602.046.45: 2x 6 EURO
– UTRASTA shelf 60x60cm Article no: 502.056.12: 8 EURO
– UTRUSTA drawer front low white 60cm Article no: 402.046.51: 5 Euro
– CAPITA leg stainless steel 8cm Article no: 302.443.46: 12 EURO
– LEDBERG LED spotlight white Article no: 103.026.67: 6 EURO
We purchased a simple 61×63.5cm custom cut particle board (6.24 EURO) with an edge banding tape (3.49 EURO) to be our benchtop, two right angle brakets (2.38 EURO) to fix the drawer front and a few wood screws (3.59 EURO) at a hardware store for a total of 15.70 EURO.
We purchased a thermometer (Foraco Digital Hygrometer Thermometer) from Amazon for 12.99 EURO.
We used tinkercad www.tinkercad.com to design our own plugs to cover the holes we drill into the cabinets.
We downloaded and printed TUSH – The Ultimate Spool Holder by Vassil Gounev on thingiverse (see attribution tag on bottom of page) www.thingiverse.com/thing:2047554.
We purchased the 608 bearings (ABEC 7 bearings – Speed Bearings 8x 608 ZZ) for the spool holder from Amazon for 13.99 EURO.
Attribution:
