I’m nearly done with my enclosure, top hat and all, but I’m wondering what to do with the filament. The Nadir top hat I’m using has a pass through for the filament in the top back, but then what? The MFS Sovol SV08 by kilianherbst is nifty, but makes a enclosing the top more difficult. Running the PTFE tube to the side means making that tube very long and filament swaps more difficult. Every option means compromise. Eventually I want to install the INDX system (like so many of us) and I’m trying to think ahead to that eventual setup.
So, if you built an enclosure, how did you solve this problem? Could you please share your solution with pictures?
I’m no expert but I have toyed with adding a tool changer enough that I’ve read several blogs ant watched a few videos. From what I’ve seen and read the consensus seems to be filament feed tubes enter the “print bed footprint” high and at the rear pointed straight up. The center tubes should be a little shorter than the end tubes. The tubes need to be long enough to reach the tool rack without bending the tubes too far.
The inevitable result is that the roof of an enclosure needs to be about 3/4 of the Y axes travel ABOVE the top of the extruder at max Z. I expect that printers that come factory equipped with tool changers will be predominantly “drop bed” rather than “flying gantry”.
I’m sure there will be designs to put elbows at the tool holder to allow the loops to stack parallel to the bed but without a pusher at the fixed end it seems to me to be problematic.
Don’t sweat it your “top hat” can be raised with a simple 4 wall extension.
I’ve printed a feedthrough, attached to center of top. On top sits a drybox, with PTFE tube to the feedthrough. Top is raised above printer frame to give print head and PTFE tube some additional head space. Side panels and raiser are cut from acryl, except the ceiling.
I’m sure there are going to be a lot of changes that will need to be made to the SV08 to get it INDX ready, but for the next few months I’d like this to be a convienent machine to use at least.
This makes as much sense as any other solution I’ve seen, and it has the added benefit of being very pragmatic. In the short term, I’m going to print up a side vent for my top hat and design a bracket for the filament sensor and a shelf for my dryer.
Long term is the real question. I found this setup for a Voron 2.4:
That’s what I’m thinking of, pleanty of dry storage for in-use filament, located directly above the printer. INDX will have a more cirect way to get filament into the heads, so I won’t have to worry about all that extra equipment. It just needs to be sreamlined and easy to access.
I drilled a hole in the nadir tophat on the side and ran the ptfe tube through that. Then I used 2 pieces of tubing that connect with a butt connector. One goes to the extruder and near the top I added the connector and the other piece of ptfe tubing goes thru the hole I drilled and into the filament sensor.
