Do I need to open the door or the top when printing PLA on the K2 Plus? I asked this on FB groups and I get opinions but is there anything official about it? I would think with two chamber fans, those could be turned on so one could keep the door and top closed. If anyone has any official about this, or personal experience, I would love to read it.
The quick answer is no.
Refer to the PLA filament spec and you will see chamber temp is 35 so very unlikely to need ventilation. However your choice. I would be surprised it it got anywhere near 40 degrees on a long print.
Other may disagree but I never open door or top even with PLA-CF
I even set the chamber temp to 40 so its more quiet.
The idea of a chamber fan is that you don’t have to leave doors open etc. The authority I rely on here is Prusa, and they make the chamber fan one of their selling points of the CoreOne (you explicitly don’t need to leave the door open with the CoreOne, as the chamber fan keeps the internal temp. below the level that’ll worry PLA (35degrees seems to be the norm). This is the temperature chosen by Creality for their PLA profiles, so I would start there. If you do see some overheating artifacts with PLA, reduce the chamber temp in the slicer profiles until you get a good result. I’ve been getting excellent PLA prints from my K2+ without leaving anything open, which is just as well since the printer is in my office, and the CFS is on the top!
I had a failed CR Hyper PLC white, RFID tagged print with a full plate. I had cracked the door open a bit in the past and forgot to on this one. The chamber set on default CR Hyper PLA is 0 C. Bed is 50 C and hot end is at 220 C. All stock out of the box printing from the CMS. The ironic thing is part of the print that failed and that I am now reprinting a riser and hold the top open kit for the K2+ and the CMS. Chamber temp was up over 30C when I saw objects on the left side, near one of the chamber fans, warp off the bed. One of the three got flicked the other two on that side were ruined but the rest of the short stuff on the plate was completed at the time I aborted the print. With the door cracked open I have chamber temps around 26C with the model fan at 100%, side fan at 80% and case fan at 0%. All fan speeds are auto set by the defaults in the slicer, stock. I started leaving the door cracked open when I had spider stringing at the seams and opening the door a bit seamed (lol) to help.
Your results may vary.
Hello Cannonman,
When printing PLA (of any brand) I tend to leave the lid half way open and the door also on my Qidi Q1Pro and never have problems with my prints doing it that way.
Cheers.
Interesting that you’re getting issues with PLA using stock settings. Even more interesting that your chamber fans (the side ones) were running, but the case fan (the ones at the back) were not. The chamber (side) fans just re-circulate the air within the enclosure; it’s the rear fans that work to keep the enclosure cool by actually replacing air from outside. If those fans are at 0%, I’m presuming the enclosure will simply continue to heat up, regardless of the activity of the side fans. Again I’m presuming that as the rear fans draw air out, it’s replaced by air coming in through the (inactive) enclosure heater fan (the centre one at the back) - so if the printer is positioned close to a wall or corner (like mine is) it’s possible that you’ll be drawing in air that’s just been exhausted, thus simply recirculating hot air and not actually cooling the printer sufficiently. I need to investigate this further, as I’m still not fully familiar with all these fans, and their corrispoding controls.
Thank you so much for getting back to me. This was not making sense with the side fans running so hard. I am a complete Noob to pla but have been printing abs for 12 years on a modified bedslinger and wind was always the enemy. It is a hurricane inside but most of the tempest does not impinge on printing objects. I think the left side suction caused faiures on that side. The print failed as the bed lowered into its proximity, I may design up a suction baffle for those inlets. Just finishing a 24 hr + print and will do a short test without fans, door closed. I have island mounted the K2 on a ridgid anchored platform and being an abs guy, on of my initial prints was a custom designed exhaust manifold with a low draw, no vibration connection to an HRV (pic). No exhaust recirculation here for sure. I am in the same boat (or benchy) with the fans. As you noted, no heat rejection, if anything the side fans blow heat from the heated bed and necessitate door opening to keep things cool on long prints.
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