BCN3D has announced the launch of its Smart Cabinet to ensure 3D printing filaments are stored at optimal humidity levels.
The Smart Cabinet has been designed to support the company’s Epsilon W27 and Epsilon W50 3D printing platforms, and uses smart drying technology to help protect against print failure and nozzle clogging as parts are printed.
BCN3D’s Smart Cabinet uses the absorption dryer method, alternating between drying cycles and regeneration cycles to maintain a constant dry environment around the stored spools, protecting them from sudden external changes. It controls relative humidity inside the air-tight container through a desiccant that absorbs moisture (alumina-based pellets). By isolating the absorption material from the heating chamber and increasing its temperature, the absorbed humidity is released outside of the chamber and the material is regenerated. After the purge, the desiccant has been refreshed and is ready to collect more moisture.
The air-tight container and cyclical internal ventilation through the fan, heat and valves means there is no user interaction required.
“The Smart Cabinet draws attention to the important fact that, in order to get fine, repeatable parts, it is crucial to control the whole printing process, which includes ensuring the materials are in optimal conditions,” commented BNC3D CTO Eric Pallarés. “All materials are sensitive to humidity to a certain degree, but some of them, like PA, TPU or BVOH, are especially affected by it. For example, on a humid day, a spool of PA can absorb the amount of water that makes printing issues appear in a few hours, in less than a day. When customers struggle printing PA, wasting time and money on failed or defective print jobs is not because of the printers, or because of the profiles, but because of the degradation of the materials. So to really unlock the potential of AM with technical materials, beyond PLA, a solution like the Smart Cabinet is mandatory.”
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