So I’ve been doing some research and some tinkering with possible solutions to an enclosure for my Snapmaker. I made some offers to someone who had a Buzz Box for sale on eBay, but they wanted too much for it. I found and online company that sells acrylic display cases and I was going to use one fo their products as my starting point.
What I ended up doing was far simpler and considerably less expensive. It cost me less than $25 bucks at Home Depot.
First, I got this 64 quart storage bin and a pack of felt self adhesive pads;
And then you just place the enclosure over your Snapmaker. It offers plenty of room all he way around it and it’s clear so you can easily monitor any job you’re running;
What a brilliant idea. I think I’d sit the printer on the lid so that I could close it in a latched way - then it might be ferret proof (there has to be something that is ferret proof in the world) and I could have my printer in a sensible place rather than high up. Might have to make some ventilation and cable holes but that’s fine.
Well, here’s the first dozen prints I performed with the enclosure. I did not get a single snag or flub print in all 12. These were all done as fast prints, but the detail, smoothness and solidity of each print was really impressive.
Truly fantastic designs with great geometric details just in time for Easter. I brimmed each print just to ensure adhesion to the build plate and I ran supports on the Minecraft egg as suggested. If you have children coming round for Easter, I can’t recommend these designs enough. They’re a big hit.
In a way, the DIY enclosure above is a better implementation because you can remove the enclosure from the Snapmaker rather than removing the Snapmaker from the enclosure when you need to change modules. The only things it’s missing are some blue-blocking film for laser engraving and some vent holes.
I eventually found a box tall enough at Asda (£9). I got a USB fan from Maplin (£5) (actually, I now have several for spares) - I split the cage putting one half at the top and one (with the fan) at the back. I have cut a notch out for the cables at the back. The box then clips to the lid.
I have enough room in there to keep the tools (including the ferret’s favourite screwdriver!) and it doesn’t get at all warm.
