314159 wrote:I don't know why more people don't go for this. welding bottles of CO2 would also work, ...
I like the idea, it's pretty cool. I do think there are a couple of difficulties that extend beyond cost.
* To conserve gas, wouldn't we need to seal the enclosure nearly perfectly? The charge you'd lose each print (you'd have to open the enclosure between each one at least) would be enough to rack up some gas bottle bills alone, let alone letting the enclosure gently leak during 6 hr prints... There would be some mucking around and probably some cost in getting that right.
* Say the system successfully prevented a fire - that would mean there's a fire risk sitting inside the case (e.g. super hot plastic ready to combust in an overheated hot-end due to a popped mosfet driver), which once the door is opened and oxygen is allowed back in may ignite? How would one deal with this hazard?
In the commercial world, someone would be tasked with doing a bit of risk assessment and hazard analysis of such a system to see what the most effective controls should be - has anyone in the reprap world decided to have a crack at this? To be sensible (oh how I hate to be!) I think we might have a bit of ground to cover in monitoring things like FET outputs before we start on inert gas enclosures! :)
SD3. Mk2b + glass, heated enclosure, GT2 belts, direct drive y shaft, linear bearings, bowden-feed E3D v5 w/ 0.9° stepper
Smoothieboard via Octoprint on RPi