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It's good to run a filter when you're using a 3D printer, less so for things like PLA than for ABS and the like which I don't use - because they generate microplastics and PLA basically doesn't - but still, it's a good idea. You never know what they're using for pigments, after all.
It'd be best to build an enclosure, really, but until then, this small HEPA filter combined with a cowl I made out of acrylic sheeting* and the Bernoulli Effect should get the job done.
You can actually feel the air going up on your hands when it's on full speed. Also there's one PLA I use - a higher-temperature-tolerante PLA with additives - which has a bit of a smell to it, and that just vanishes. So it ought to do.
(It's not a bad smell, but it's a smell, and I don't want any smell.)
If you look down at the bottom you'll note the fan assembly no longer has a twist-tie. That's because I printed a slightly-rescaled backplane mount so the fit is now nice and snug, rather than just a little loose. No more twist-ties.
Oh, what was... oh right, so, I'd been working on getting that new backplane printed with the HTPLA, everything kept coming out terrible - I mean, unusably bad - until I finally noticed that the stupid part cooling fan wasn't turning on, which it wasn't doing because the stupid HTPLA profile told it not to, which was happening because WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS GOOD?! but now it's fixed.
(I didn't notice for ages because the printer is now quieter than the HEPA filter, and gets mostly drowned out.)
The bigger takeaway from all that is that HTPLA is much worse at something called "spanning" than regular PLA. "Spanning" is when you try to print across a gap, like, say, the top of a doorframe. It can do it, and do it without printing support material underneath it... but not as well as regular PLA, and even less well on complicated objects. Like, say, the backplane.
Which is why it took me three days to get a good HTPLA backplane, slightly rescaled, etc etc etc and now we're here.
I'm still pleased to have a lab notebook again. I think it'll come in handy.
*: Yes the acrylic is from Boeing Surplus, yes the original, yes I still have some from that massive stack I got back when, yes I've really had it that long, it's good stuff and I got a lot of it, may the gods bless the memory of the actual lazy B as opposed to this trainwreck we have now
It'd be best to build an enclosure, really, but until then, this small HEPA filter combined with a cowl I made out of acrylic sheeting* and the Bernoulli Effect should get the job done.
You can actually feel the air going up on your hands when it's on full speed. Also there's one PLA I use - a higher-temperature-tolerante PLA with additives - which has a bit of a smell to it, and that just vanishes. So it ought to do.
(It's not a bad smell, but it's a smell, and I don't want any smell.)
If you look down at the bottom you'll note the fan assembly no longer has a twist-tie. That's because I printed a slightly-rescaled backplane mount so the fit is now nice and snug, rather than just a little loose. No more twist-ties.
Oh, what was... oh right, so, I'd been working on getting that new backplane printed with the HTPLA, everything kept coming out terrible - I mean, unusably bad - until I finally noticed that the stupid part cooling fan wasn't turning on, which it wasn't doing because the stupid HTPLA profile told it not to, which was happening because WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS GOOD?! but now it's fixed.
(I didn't notice for ages because the printer is now quieter than the HEPA filter, and gets mostly drowned out.)
The bigger takeaway from all that is that HTPLA is much worse at something called "spanning" than regular PLA. "Spanning" is when you try to print across a gap, like, say, the top of a doorframe. It can do it, and do it without printing support material underneath it... but not as well as regular PLA, and even less well on complicated objects. Like, say, the backplane.
Which is why it took me three days to get a good HTPLA backplane, slightly rescaled, etc etc etc and now we're here.
I'm still pleased to have a lab notebook again. I think it'll come in handy.
*: Yes the acrylic is from Boeing Surplus, yes the original, yes I still have some from that massive stack I got back when, yes I've really had it that long, it's good stuff and I got a lot of it, may the gods bless the memory of the actual lazy B as opposed to this trainwreck we have now
