Excited to join the community!

[DaveBot]

Hi Everyone -

I finally went ahead and ordered a Rostock Max v2 on Friday, after having done a *lot* of research on options. (It's a combination birthday/Christmas present, thanks to my supportive wife Marti for encouraging me with such a big purchase!) The community here was a significant part of my decision, kudos to everyone for maintaining such a friendly, supportive community! (Whoever's doing the moderation behind the scenes here to keep out the trolls and flamers is doing an unusually good job!)

I have a lot of business travel the next two weeks, and normally have only Sunday afternoons available for puttering anyway, so the ~20-hour build time is probably going to stretch over a month or more of real time. Still, I'm *so* looking forward to it!

A quick question: We live in the Atlanta area, so the local climate is pretty humid. I try to keep the basement (where the Rostock will live) below 50% humidity, because much over that and my various machine tools start to rust. I'm wondering about the Rostock's MDF parts, though. Should I seal the edges with urethane or something, to prevent it from absorbing moisture? I'm concerned that the local humidity could affect the alignment of the machine, if the MDF absorbed moisture and swelled up any as a result.

Any thoughts on sealing the edges of the MDF? Wise precaution or overly-picky waste of time?

*SO* glad you're all here; I have to say again how great it is to find such a positive, supportive community on the Internet!

- Dave Etchells
(DaveBot)

[teoman]

Welcome. You will enjoy building the printer.

Skim through the tread here on what to get as extras etc. Lots of good ideas that are nice to have. Lots of people say the dampers make the unit much quieter.
Replace the fan on controller. It doesnt last very long for most people.

As for humidity, it is never good. I cannot say how much the machine will get affected but you could paint the the melamine. It will give your printer an intersting look aswell. Look at the threads.

I would recommend trying to find a cupboard or buildimg an enclosure for your printer. Even better if you can hit the junkyard and find a discarded fridge, that would be awesome. Just stuff the rostock inside, pop in a bucket of rice and you are good to go.

[geneb]

Dave, just to give you an idea of the quality of folks we have here - I've NEVER deleted a post from a user that was misbehaving. We might bitch at one another occasionally, but by and large I think we're one of the best behaved bunch of nerds on the net.

g.

[McSlappy]

I believe I can speak on humidity - I live on the Sunshine Coast in Australia have 2 rostocks here (a V1 and V2) as well as a bunch of filament (I sell the Rostocks in Oz )

And humidity hasn't been ANY issue at all. I live where it sits at 64% today but will rise to the high 70% mark this week. Once the rainy season hits, we get a lot higher than that as it'll rain here for weeks on end

There isn't the slightest hint of swelling or even any sign that the moisture is affecting the MDF. I did not seal the edges of the printers and I doubt it would matter. I suppose a direct submersion into water would affect it, but high humidity doesn't seem to do anything at all

BTW, I think that submersing the Rostock might affect your retraction rates, so if you're planning on running it underwater, I'd do some experimenting and recalibrate accordingly

PS. But filament... Nylon and PC don't really like this humidity :/

[DaveBot]

That's great info guys! Thanks especially to McSlappy, with his real-world experience from a place that sounds even more humid than Atlanta(!) I won't worry about varnishing the edges, then, I'll be happy to get building that much quicker I pretty much have to keep the basement below 50% anyway, else my saw/joiner/planer tables start to get a fine mottling of rust. So it sounds like my Rostock will be completely fine. (Thanks for that note on submersion and retraction rates, I'll make a note...)

Thanks for the suggestions, teoman - I'd heard about the dampers, already bought 3 on eBay. I'm wondering now, though, whether I should get one for the extruder motor also?

I'd read about someone else's mod, where they printed a new endplate to mount a pair of 92mm fans on, to keep the controller cool. Sounded like a great idea, so I have two fans standing by.

It sounds like the printer will be OK, but I've read plenty about filament being best kept dry. I have some large plastic bins, figured I'd keep filament in those, with a desiccator in them, whenever it wasn't in use. (Maybe a pain to remove the filament after each run, though?)

I do plan on putting an enclosure around the printer, and/or enclose it's build chamber, so I can keep a temperature-controlled ambient. I've already rigged some HVAC duct and a little ventilator fan, to draw off air from the general area and exhaust it to the outside. I'm unusually sensitive to odors, so figured I'd not like the smell of hot ABS permeating the basement/house. Also read about nano particles given off, so the vent fan seemed like a good idea.

geneb - that's pretty amazing, actually! I run a website myself (http://www.imaging-resource.com - ask me whatever you want about cameras , and we have a generally pretty congenial crowd, but it takes policing to keep the trolls out. Maybe less of that here, since the field is so new, everyone has a "we're all in this together" feeling. Maybe 10 years from now there'll be fanboys and trolls like elsewhere, but hopefully not

Thanks again for the suggestions and reports, really looking forward to my Rostock arriving. (Bummed that I'm going to be on the road for most of the next 2 weeks, though, so scant chance to work on it, once it comes

[Volkhard]

Hello Dave

Congrats on your Rostock. You are a little ahead of me as I have not decided yet which brand will be my first 3D printer.

While I don't have any 3D printer experience I know a little bit about MDF and humidity as I owned a cabinetmaking business in Florida for many years.
Here what I know about man-made substrates (MDF, particleboard, Melamineboard, Plywood):
All these materials are absorbing moisture from the surrounding air (Imagine Florida! I eventually air-conditioned my factory and warehoues!). The moisture will make the material swell a little bit.
In my company I had the rule, the we have to edge-band (applying this PVC edge material) every part on the day it is cut! reason: Moisture comes in through the uncovered edge (slowly but steady). When running the board through the edgebander (big automated machine), the on-board routers trimming the edges is connected to feeler-shoes or rollers sitting a couple centimeters away from the edge. When left out there in a high humidity environments, the edge area will become slightly thicker than the material more inbound in the panel.

I do not know, whether these slight differences would make an impact on the printer as I don't know the engineering of the machine and where these parts are located. Good engineering would use these materials only, where a slight swell ( not visible, but measurable) would not influence the settings of dimension-critical parts. I have been amazed seeing 3D printers and also CNC milling machines built with MDF or plywood parts, knowing these wooden components are sometimes moving more than the woodworker working with them (cabinetmaker insider joke!)

It's all in the engineering to use the right part at the right location. For what I see from the pictures, these Deltas from SeeMeCNC seem to be well engineered and I would be surprised they would have used these components in critical locations. Perhaps someone from SeeMeCNC can chime in and put our concerns to rest.

[geneb]

(I'm not a SeeMeCNC employee, I just write vague build manuals. )

All the Melamine parts are laser cut - this process tends to seal the exposed edges of the material. Many people paint theirs during the build which will also tend to seal the parts.

Red Sonja (http://www.geneb.org/rostock-max/red-sonja.jpg) lives in my work shop. No A/C during the summer and it's only heated one day a week during the winter. I've never had any issues with it. I'm in Washington State so the humidity isn't going to be as wild as Florida, but it DOES rain a lot. (We turn on the water every time large numbers of Californians decide it might be a nice place to live.)

I agree with you on the unsealed MDF CNC router chassis. How they hold any tolerance at all is beyond me.

One of the forum members (whose name escapes me) re-built his Rostock MAX using Baltic Birch. It looks really cool and apparently works great.

I wouldn't worry that much about what effect humidity is going to have on the machine.

g.

[tbone_atl]

Hi Dave,

I'm new to the community here, having just finished my build this week, but I've been RepRapping since 2010 (built a few mendel models). I too live in Atlanta - Kennesaw actually. I keep a lot of PLA on spools in my basement and have done so for years without any issue. I was mostly buying 3mm on 5lb spools so it tends to last a while

Not sure if it helps - it's a fun kit to build and I got some outstanding results on my second print. I still need to work out a few retraction issues and learn more about Repetier (been using PronterFace since it came out) since it's new to me.

tbone_atl.

[DaveBot]

Hi Guys -

Thanks for all the info, sorry to be so slow replying! Back to back biz trips the last 2 weeks, but I'm finally back home, looking forward to a weekend of tinkering and finally working on putting my Rostock Max together!

It does sound like I don't have much to worry about with humidity, particularly given that I have to keep the basement at <50%, to keep my various machine tools from rusting. That's good news, I wasn't looking forward to delaying the build to apply urethane and wait for it to dry

tbone - sounds like we're fairly close - I live in the far corner of Woodstock, basically about Sandy Plains and 92. I'd love to see your setup some time, although I work *all* the time, so who knows when. (Self-employed; I have a tough boss, and there's always an absurd backlog that needs doing :-0 )

I can't wait to get my Rostock together, but given the amount of free time I have, it'll probably be March before I do :-0

Thanks again for the info; this is a great community, really appreciate you guys!

- Dave E.