The quality of the enclosure (I have one for my A250) is impressing but there are a few design errors.
Is there a way to use the enclosure with the doors on the other side?
I just assembled my enclosure - tried it - and in my opinion you can’t do without modifications.
So I can’t really use the enclosure right now (filament holder on the wrong side.
The front door is not the problem (you can rotate the one door sheet for the display and the 4 rails on the frontside) but the design of the long rails (along Y-axis) are.
Since the acrylic sheets are screwed over the rails I don’t understand why they didn’t make it possible to change the sides. Or 4 small M2,5-holes so the LED stripes can be mounted to the bottom rails and cut-outs for the feet holder on the top rails if this is cheaper.
Maybe ther is a posibility right now but I don’t see it.
And if not the Snapmaker team should offer a conversion set containing just 2 side rails so you can mount the side door on the left and maybe a USB-C extension for the display.
in another post (MDF Cut by laser module?) @Edwin mentioned that an 8W laser will be available soon. can the enclosures really protect from such a powerful laser? seems to me if you haven’t even tested the OD of the enclosure how can you know that an errant beam wont shoot through the acrylic and light my house on fire? after all an 8W laser can etch stainless steel, and will easily ignite paper and wood products. if you did not intend for the enclosures to be used with the high powered laser module, are you going to be providing another enclosure to remove toxic gasses and protect us usurers? or should we be looking into designing our own safety systems?
Right now I’m thinking about cancelling my enclosure Pre-order regardless of any od measurements. There are rather big gaps at the doors and where the hole for the touch panel is. In Germany you would never be allowed to use it in business without personal laser protective gear. As for me I have two little kids. That raises the desire for a real protection even more.
Just got my enclosure and assembled it yesterday. So I do not have much experience with it yet, but wanted to share my initial feedback. Keep in mind this is all based on the A350 version.
Assembly:
Overall it went rather well. All pieces were in perfect condition although I will say there were an excessive number of the door sliders (needs 4, mine came with 10) which made me keep checking if I somehow missed some. There were also excess bolts, but only a couple per type so more along the lines of “reasonable spares”.
The frame assembled picture (Step 10) was very useful and helped me find some errors I frustratingly made, despite all the help at the steps I had messed up.
Fit of pieces seems pretty decent. While there are some fairly minor gaps at corners of the plastic and such (excluding the decent size gap around the touchscreen) everything is pretty stable and solid.
The only “broken” part I would somewhat claim are the magnets on the door handle areas. 3 have already come unstuck and needed to be reattached, so I think their adhesive tape needs a bit of work.
All that being said there are a areas that might be good for future adjustment.
Areas for improvement:
5) Cable lengths. The extension cable for the Snapmaker to the enclosure needs to be longer. The other cables it came with hide away in the tracks nicely, but this one just runs across. There should also be an extension for the touchscreen and USB ports. While the touchscreen cable extends long enough, it’s coiling is fairly tight and it is obviously straining. I use the USB extensively so now it is not as easy to get to. I ran a USB extender cable out the power supply port in the back plastic. It would be nice to have had one included and a actual opening for it made (or several optional spots, with one USB connector and plugs for the rest) in the acrylic. Finally the power supply to the Snapmaker. It must now be placed further away and it would have been good to have a longer cable to position it elsewhere.
6) Angled track for top front above door. Having an LED strip capable track there would have been nice, to shine down on the front of an object not just the sides. One of the side LED strips could have a connector at the end also and just plug in there. Or (possibly in addition) have the front vertical tracks on either side of the front door have LEDs.
7) Additional panel gaps/mounting. The acrylic panels cover the whole outside well, but there are no real convenient gaps in the edges to allow for future add ons, optional creations, or modifications. What if I want more than one filament holder? What if I wanted to mount filament storage on top?
8) Alternative panels… Still on the panels, it might be nice to offer alternative ones in the future. What if someone needs the vent fan at the back left, or on the side panel?
9) Gap around touchscreen. This is fairly obvious and a possible fix might be a rubber trim piece on the inside of the hole so the touchscreen rests against it. Even with a slight recess from the front of the plastic it would not be a problem.
10) Door indication in enclosure display on touchscreen. Just a nice touch… You have the image of the enclosure, why not make it a full mimic? Lights and fan in, plus image changes to show doors are open. Purely cosmetic but things like that are nice touches.
I may have more as I use it more. Also feel free to ask questions or for clarification.
The manual shows a set of 24 beam parts (24-1 and 24-2, which look to be parts establishing width and height of the enclosure) and some 48 beam parts that look like width and depth components. If you have the lengths for those, that would be helpful. Really all I’m looking for is the lengths of one of each of the structural members for width, depth, and height of the enclosure, absent any doors, hinges, brackets, etc.
If it does not get answered before, I will try to get them tonight. The depth is the 48s, height and width use the 24s. Doors and acrylic do not add much unless open (need to account for that in spacing on a workbench).
Although I did think of another piece of feedback. More rails COULD be the same I think. The vertical rails (except door sensor one) could all be the same (if they are not already). The two LED bars could be the same if an LED connector had been put at both ends (which would help adding additional LEDs as well). The bottom side bars could also be the same, just ignore the slide points on the left side (of course, someone could buy a second side door option then, which would be handy depending on your positioning). All the front and back, top/bottom bars could probably be made the same IF again you ignore the Sliders for the back (or have an optional door, again nice) AND make it so the extension box is able to be mounted as needed (not already fixed). Personally, I would have preferred it on a vertical bar than top anyways.
Got the measurements as closely as I can get them (tiny bit of rounding to the mm, which these were obviously engineered to versus Imperial):
24 = 550mm (21 11/16")
48 = 800mm (31 15/32")
I am totally happy with a couple extras (depending on size of the part or number of parts) but 10 when you need 4 is a bit much. Although I did find a use for one of them mounting a new shower handle I printed…
