Special Altitude Considerations for 3D Printing?

[mike-truly 3]

I am located at high altitude (9500ft elevation) and am wondering if there are special considerations for 3D printing at this altitude?

 

It is normally very dry here so I guess I don't have to worry much about humidity affecting my filament.  It is also cold here so I am making sure to watch my ambient temps in the printing environment (I have an enclosure on order to keep more heat in the U2 build chamber and help the print bed to maintain temps).

 

I have read posts about chips on the motherboard getting hot and wonder if at altitude more cooling (heatsinks) is needed?  (I have a projector which has a high altitude setting which basically runs the internal fan at 100% to help keep the bulb cool at high altitude).

 

Thanks for your thoughts!

 

Mike

 

[kmanstudios 1,120]

I wonder if there is a sort of transference of the property of heat and boiling points to the plastics.

 

At sea level, water boils at 212 °F. With each 500-feet increase in elevation, the boiling point of water is lowered by just under 1 °F. At 7,500 feet, for example, water boils at about 198 °F.

 

I looked that up and did the ol' copy n' paste

[gr5 2,178]

Be aware of the overheating thing.  The symptom most likely on the UM2 is that drivers (usually the Z driver) will sometimes power off for a fraction of a second because they overheated.  For the Z axis you get a big gap sometimes (if the bed slides down under gravity).  For the X or Y axis it causes the part to have a sudden step - it's extremely obvious.  But as long as you don't get obvious symptoms then no need to add more cooling to the PCB.  Removing the cover actually might be all you need to do but adding a little fan/wind will be enough to compensate for the thinner air.

[mike-truly 3]

Thanks to all for the ideas!

 

I am currently using pretty standard temps and things are printing well so far.  I will be watching for any signs of overheating.  I can easily cool things down by cracking a window in the room but then it would start to affect my build chamber temps.  I have an enclosure on order so maybe when that's present I would be able to use the 'crack the window' method.

 

Thanks again.

 

Mike

 

[kmanstudios 1,120]

If the plastics behave such as water (Lower transition temps), then would you need higher temps? If you can cut down on the printing temps, you could reduce your overheating issues.

[mike-truly 3]

Thanks for the ideas!

 

I haven't had over-heating problems yet... just was wondering what to look out for if other users have had bad experiences printing at high altitude.  I will experiment with the lower temps.

 

Thanks again.

 

Mike