UMO heated bed vs heated chamber?

[greens83 5]

I recently bought a second hand UMO on ebay. Its not in great condition, belts are all stretched and it probably need stripping down cleaning and re-assembling. I don't mind doing this as is was quite cheap in the end.

 

I still have the UMO I bought 5 or 6 years ago with a heated bed upgrade kit and the ulti controller both of which are no longer for sale as upgrades which is disappointing.

 

So with that in mind I got to thinking about a heated bed chamber instead of a heated bed and here's where I'm hoping fellow makers can give me an opinion.

 

Can a heated chamber replace a heated bed? If I heat the chamber to 60 degrees is that just as good or perhaps better than a 60 degree bed?

 

Id like to use this machine for printing more exotic materials like PC, PP and nylon. I have had some success with my other UMO+ printing these materials by enclosing the chamber.

Ill also be looking at replacing the hot end with one from E3d. Any opinions and advise welcome.

 

P.S. Does anyone know where I can find a good set of instructions to make a 3rd party Ulti controller (or even better know anywhere that has stock)?

[Dim3nsioneer 558]

The Ulticontroller board including the display and sd card reader is still available as spare part as it is still used in the UMO+. Get in contact with a larger Ultimaker reseller to get one. There are plenty of designs around for a cover of the Ulticontroller board I think.

 

The heated chamber cannot replace the heated bed, especially not for materials like PC which need a build plate temperature above 100 degc. The temperature of the bed should match the glass transition temperature of the material (usually slightly above or at least close to it when using additional adhesives like the glue stick).

[greens83 5]

Thats good to know about the ulti controller, thanks for the info. I guess its down to the heat directly transferring from the bed to the print rather than the whole chamber being that temperature?

 

Looks like Ill have to find some 3rd party heated bed builds.

 

thanks again.

 

Jamie

[Dim3nsioneer 558]

Yes, you have to keep the first layer of the print in an as least crystalline state as possible to make it stick to the build plate. But you don't want that effect on the layers higher up as it could result in deformation.

 

The alternative to a third party solution would be to buy the available Ultimaker parts (everything except the additional pcb and the cables between that one and the Ultiboard 1.5.x) and make the rest by yourself as all hardware and software for the UMO(+) is open source.