Pop up 3D printer enclosures tested - Creality vs Wham Bam

I had the chance to see how effective two pop up enclosures would be when printing a difficult ABS print. In this video, I conduct back to back print tests and monitor temperatures in the enclosure as well as in each printer's electronic housing.

My results showed the enclosures did indeed raise the temperatures inside but with my Zortrax filament, this gave no reduction of warping. Your results may vary, please leave them in the comments.

Both printers suffered from some mishaps due to raised temperatures. Running the mainboard, stepper motors and especially the power supply at higher temperatures will shorten their lifespan and might lead to premature failure. If using any type of heated enclosure, I strongly advise moving these components outside of the heated area or adding ducted cool air.

If I had to choose between the two, I feel the Wham Bam is a more polished product and easier to deploy and pack away when needed. Both products provided free of charge for this test. All opinions expressed are my own.

My previous videos on adding a lid and heater to my Ender 5:

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[Spartacusse]

For my Ender 3, I've made my enclosure out of MDF, cut in a local hardware store, no Ikea in my country. Painted with a fire-retardant varnish. Smoke detector on the enclosure's inside roof and an other one on the room's ceiling. Electronics, PSU and Pi3 on the outside. It gets to 50c passively heated by the bed. Motors get to 60c but they don't care, their working temperatures are upwards of 90ºc. I have great results with some local, no-name brand ABS and a few (6-8) lines of brim.

With ABS you have to chose your battles, for action figures, statues, mechanical parts, basically anything with lots of twists and turns to allow the ABS to release the stress, it's great, no delaminations and rarely any warpage at the bottom. Now for something with long, tall, straight walls like a box, it doesn't do so well, even so, I've printed the Ender 3 drawer, a few layers delaminated, but I quickly fixed it with some thick ABS slurry.

Edit: A little more on the motors. They are made with Class B enamel insulated wires, which can withstand up to 130c, the internal temperature of a stepper motor is around 30c more than the outside casing, so in theory one could run them up to 100c case surface temperature, but not exceeding 80c to 90c is recommend. 60-70c makes virtually no difference on the life expectancy of the motor compared to 40-50c (open air printer).
Now electronics are a whole other story, a study made on car's electronics in different climates, found that for every 10c over 20c ambient, the electronics life expectancy is halved, so 30c get's around 50% life span, 40c is 50% of 50%, therefore 25% the original 20c life, and so on and so forth. Even so, many people live in hot climates, and are still able to have their TVs, Stereos, electronics in general work for 10+ years, so I wouldn't leave the electronics inside a 50c enclosure for sure, but I wouldn't go out of my way to get perfect airflow so every single degree of heat generated by the board get exchanged to the outside air, specially because there is a point where the dust introduced will be more harmful than the few degrees of heat.

[Jamesn-jszp]

I’ve had the Ender 3 enclosure since released, however it is used only to keep the dust off whilst not in use. I’ve always left the enclosures windows open while printing. My printer is now always clean and looks a whole lot neater sitting in my office

[imatzer]

I have both versions of the Prusa/IKEA Lack enclosures as well as the Creality soft enclosure. I like the Lack enclosures for aesthetics. However, I prefer the Creality soft enclosure for printing ABS. I will move my printer into the soft enclosure just to print ABS. I use a textured build plate and only use glue on smaller parts. I did find that I had to turn on the part cooling fan (usually off with ABS default settings). I really think this video is worth revisiting. I truly love printing with ABS in the Creality soft enclosure. The Lack enclosures do not seal enough to print ABS (IMO). I have a Prusa i3 MK3s and an Ender 3.

[mrclown]

Surprised to see that you got the poor results you did. I print a decent amount of ABS for functional parts using my Ender3 in a dodgy cardboard box enclosure, and while not perfect, the results are more than acceptable/useable.

A few observations:
110c on the bed is too hot (imo). You're above the glass transition temperature for ABS, so in theory your lower layers will always stay soft, which will exacerbate warping/peeling. FWIW, I have initial temp at 100c to help adhesion, which then drops to 90c.
You're much better off printing with a brim. They're annoying, but they help stop ABS corner peeling a lot.
In an enclosure, don't be afraid of using the part cooling fan for ABS (despite everyone mindlessly parroting that you shouldn't). It helps print quality a lot. The quality issue on the corners of the print @8:15 is due to the part overheating, and some fan will fix that. Just don't go overboard on fan speed % or you'll hurt layer adhesion (as in part strength, not cracks).

[nacs]

I appreciate the thorough testing and the honesty when it comes to reporting things that went wrong. Thanks!

[goldbunny]

Excellent video. I'd been thinking "Why had no-one created pop-up 3D printer enclosures with a rubber seal around the base to stick it to the tabletop?" - something along the lines of the mini greenhouse material would work and also be cheap. These things should cost no more than $30. Not $150+ but this was an excellent demo. I don't print with ABS but my friend in India does and he has ambient temp up to 30deg if the Air Conditioning goes off. He achieves non warping using an ABS solution applied to the build plate.

[TheFatBastid]

I have the ender 3 pro with the creality box. It helped my prints not warp due to breeze from my window. I run it with the top port open. The lcd screen would screw up from overheating after awhile so I moved the electronics outside it. Been running like a champ since, wouldn't want to print without it.

[blackwolfecc]

Due to living in the pacific nw, all my filament is in a dehydrator when in use. I recycle the heat generated from the dehydrator into my enclosure which house two Ender 3’s that now only run ABS. The dehydrator alone keeps ambient temps around 35c, and with both printers running temps peak around 55c. I do use a textured pei sheet from TH3D. Over all I’ve had great success, and have almost no issues with abs anymore.

I did have to replace all custom parts in the printer with abs/nylon due to temps and this summer I plan on moving the power supplies outside of the enclosure. my two access doors are also easily removable for air flow when summer hits, and I have fans installed in strategic places to either draw air out or move air in from a cooler source to help maintain temps.

[dmthandmade]

"IT'S NOT A GROWTENT, DAD!!!".

[kongchho]

We have 5 prusa inside a creality enclosure just for abs printing and it's been great.

[carlburton]

Great video as usual. I made my enclosure out of metal from an old head board and 3D printed parts for my Ender 3 pro. I covered it with heavy duty PVC normally used to cover garden furniture as it's designed to bit quite a high temperature. I've made it tall but left the top open. I know it won't maintain the temperature unaided but my ABS printing is now floorless and the bed can be dropped down to 105C for 1st layer then 90 for the rest of the print. Before the enclosure I was getting warping and delamination with the same rolls of filament. Works awesome considering cost me about 8 pounds with a bit of up-cycling.

[lioneljouvet]

Like always, thank you for your video.
I went for another route for my CR10. I build up an enclosure from scrap plywood a friend gave me. I fitted polyester 10mm thick on the inside, printed some hinges and locks, used a polycarbonate front door. The enclosure is fitted on a frame of construction wood, on wheels for moving it in my workshop. I found a cheap car thermometer in Aldi to monitor the temperature. In addition, i attached a smoke detector on top, just in case...
As the plywood was so ugly (from shipping boxes), I covered the whole setup with survival golden covers. It looks now like a moon lander. i get many questions from my friends ;)

[DeusinMachina]

Yessss I haven’t seen any videos on this topic and I’ve wanted to see a review for awhile. Thank you Teaching Tech!

[KAJJTAN]

I had DIY enclosure from PVC pipes and car sunscreen, did cost me like 4$ to make. It kept up to 40c. I did use brim for ABS parts most of the time. I never had a problem with electronics. At the moment I am working on a new enclosure. It's an old dishwasher. Basically full steel enclosure, and also made wheels so I can slide the printer like a drawer whenever I want out of the enclosure to level the bed. I am already printing in it for a few days, will mount it on the wall tomorrow.

[jamesb]

I have been using the Creality enclosure for 2 months. I have all my electronics inside with an added pi, camera, and LED lights. I'm not concerned about heat on the components or electronics as their operating temperatures can withstand much higher heats than I experience or even reported in this video. Due to my ambient temperature my enclosure is heated to about 30c. Most laptops and ATX cases are going to heat soak their components significantly more than this enclosure even at 50c. With the creality enclosure I have the best layer adhesion and never experienced warping.

[astro]

I like the dogs!


Thanks for this review, and for taking the time to fit all these accessories/upgrades to the most popular printers.

[TheRoadRoamer]

Yeah sure. Puppies were added for the “cute factor”, right? Well it worked.

Great vid as usual, man. Love your videos and they have help me immensely.

[ristopaasivirta]

Good video and testing. Was surprised about the outcome.

Some of my own observations of working with ABS using Zortrax M-200. Using their own branded ABS filament and the stock settings I have had some really bad failures, constant warping and delamination. The way I have managed to overcome this is by in their software I switch to external material and crank up the heat settings all the way up (290C nozzle, 105C bed) and the printer sits inside a cabinet which is not in anyway airtight (quite a bit of gap on the door). Now there is only minimal warping with large prints at the bottom, sometimes not at all, but most importantly the printer never fails and the objects come out as they should.

I think a big part of why Zortrax performs best for ABS is the perforated plate and using a good raft on the models. As the raft deposits itself inside the perforations it can mechanically withstand the pulling forces and the long time baking in 100+ degrees will normalize the plastic eventually relieving the part of the stress forces. I've noticed that when using ABS the raft is easy to peel off leaving a nice bottom surface on the model, unlike PLA which always ends up melting the raft into the model.

[EZYDLAB]

You had me at "it's cursed". Great video!

[soggynode]

I've been using a mostly stock Ender 3 in the Creality box all winter without any issues. I only print PLA and PETG and its winter here in Washington so my results are not really comparable to the tests Michael ran. I actually like the pipe frame and have made a camera mount, tool holder and filament guide for it. I use it in the house and out in the garage for longer overnight prints. Guess I'll see how it behaves in the summer. If nothing else, it's great for keeping the printer clean and containing the fumes. Also... the Creality enclosure goes on sale frequently, I got my mine in November for $49.