Finally tired of terrible finishes, time for a dry box.

OK, I give up. I am tired of busting my butt to get smooth finishes. About two and half weeks ago, I moved my printer and most of my “stuff” downstairs to the basement. I had run out of room in the office. I am still not sure I have enough desktop space, that is for another time.

I always had a small problem with zits and some popping when printing, but it was never that bad. So I ignored it. As I started working on building a MPCNC, the final quality of the printed parts was just disgusting. (M)ostly (P)rinted CNC is what you think, mostly printed. The finish looked like someone took a steel brush to the outside surface. I  finally caved and built a dry box. Online, these are all over the place with instructions of all kinds.

Here is my incarnation. It was made with mostly parts that I had on hand. This setup allows for expansion when I get around to implementing a multi-material setup. I had to pick up the container with the clips to hold the top closed. Ever since the print quality since has been significantly better.

Bill of materials:

• Hefty Hi-Rise 32 qt click secure container
• Rubber pipe insulation tape
• Humidity/temperature sensor
• Silicon sealant
• 1.3 inch OD/1 inch ID PVC pipe, length is related to the width of the box. It is what I had laying around
• 6 x M3-16 screws
• 6 x M3 washers
• 6 x M3 hex nuts
• 2 x M4-8 screws
• Bowden tube
• 2 x Bowden tube connectors

• Premium Orange Indicating Silica Gel Beads

• Angled Dry Box Feeder with Source  – https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2700440
• Dry Box spool holder – https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3150605

These are some pictures and lite instructions to help put it together. This is not hard; I had to design two pieces and pretty much had everything else. I did have to order the humidity/temp sensor, gel beads, and the Bowden tube.

This is the finished product.

This is the bottom side of the container cover. I used the rubber pipe insulation tape to make the cap fit snuggly, and make it airtight.

I cut a hole in the top of the box to hold the humidity/temperature monitor and sealed the edges with some silicon.

This is the inside of the finished box.

After printing the spool separators, you need to tap the holes with the 4mm screw tap that fits with the 4mm screws that you have. You should get away with just forcing the screw into the hold.

This is a close up of the installation of the tube after it has been cut. Use the M3 screws, washers, and nuts to secure the tube holder to the side of the container.

This is a screen shot of the two parts that I designed in SolidWorks.

To get the Bowden tube to stay put on the standard Anet A8 direct drive, I tapped the aluminum arm to fit the threads. This is not needed, or needs to be adapted to the particular printer you have. A real E3D hotend and whatnot is in the future, so this should fit nicely to the direct drive extruder. I am not going to do the remote extruder thing. I want to be able to do TPU, etc and you need to have the extruder as close hotend to make that work well. (Ask Prusa) The other end is from Gerard Boulukan. I had to modify the inside piece to allow for the Bowden tube to cleanly get through the box without kinking. Make sure that you polish and widen the ends of the tube. They get out of shape from cutting them.

Let me know what you think.

–BA